ON THE REVISION OF THE 
CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



BENJAMIN B. WARFIELD. 



OF THE 



CONFESSION OF FAITH. 




BENJAMIN B. WARFIELD. 




NEW YORK: 
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 

38 West Twenty-third Street. 

V \ ^ H V\ 




COPTBIGHT, 1890, BY 

ANSON D. F. KANDOLPH & CO. 



PRESS OF 
EDWARD O. JENKINS' SON, 
NEW YORK. 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



The papers which have been collected in this pamphlet 
rere all written during the summer of 1889, and belong 
therefore to the first stages of the discussion concerning 
the revision of the Westminster Confession. Perhaps we 
have already entered into a new phase of the question. At 
all events these papers form a body by themselves. I have 
taken great liberties with them in reprinting them, freely 
altering and adding to them. I have not thought it well, 
however, to rewrite them ; and have, therefore, added an 
indication of the place and circumstances in which each 
first appeared, so as partly to account to the reader for their 
occasional form. It belongs to the very nature of a body 
of reprinted articles, which originally appeared separately, 
that many repetitions should occur in them. I have not 
thought it necessary carefully to exscind these. The papers 
are reprinted in the hope that in their collected form they 
may do something toward helping Presbyterians to appre- 
ciate their heritage in our noble Confession, and toward 
encouraging them to retain it in its integrity as the stand- 
ard of their public teaching and their testimony to the truth 
of God to those who are without. 

Benjamin B. Warfield. 

Pkinceton, January 1, 1890. 



CONTENTS. 



PA.GK 

The Proposal to Revise the Westminster Confession, . 7 

What is the "Confession of Faith"? . . . .18 

Does the Confession need Revision? ... 42 

The Presbyterian World and the Westminster Con- 
fession, 62 

Confessional Subscription and Revision, . . .86 



ON THE EEVISION 

OF 

THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



i. 

THE PEOPOSAL TO KEVISE THE WESTMIN- 
STEE CONFESSION* 

If we may judge by the comments of the secular and 
undenominational press, the recent action of the Presbyte- 
rian General Assembly in inquiring of its presbyteries 
whether they desire a revision of the "Westminster Confes- 
sion of Faith, is likely to be much misapprehended by 
those who are insufficiently acquainted with all the circum- 
stances of the case. It may seem natural to infer from 
such an action, that the Presbyterians, speaking through 
their highest court, are proposing to themselves a rather 
thorough-going revision of the doctrinal basis on which 
they have so long stood ; that such an agitation could not 
arise save in response to a wide-spread, spontaneous move- 
ment in the Chnrch, by which a large body of its ministers 
and adherents have drifted into a position of opposition to 



* Printed in The Independent for July 18, 1889. 

(7) 



8 



ON THE REVISION OF 



the doctrines taught in the Westminster Confession of 
Faith, or at least of dissatisfaction with the way in which 
they are taught in it ; and that the movement thus begun 
is sure to issue in extensive changes of the mode of state- 
ment or of the doctrines themselves of the Westminster 
Standards, if not in the total discarding of them as antiqua- 
ted relics of a past age and the substitution for them of a 
new creed more accordant with the living faith of the 
Church. Nevertheless, no one of these inferences is justi- 
fied by the facts. The sole legitimate deduction is rather 
that the Presbyterian Church is so true to its profession 
that God alone, speaking in His Word, is "Lord of the 
conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and 
commandments of men," and so jealous of the rights of 
the Church as over against its subordinate standards, which 
are its creation, not its mistress : that it keeps constantly 
before itself the expression of its testimony to doctrine, 
and thus secures that that testimony shall always remain 
the living voice of the Church bearing its witness to the 
truth of God, as it apprehends and lives by it. 

I. 

The present overture does not contemplate change of 
doctrine, and does not explicitly propose change even in j 
the statement of doctrine. In its preamble it recites as the 
ground on which it bases itself : 

" Whereas, Overtures have come to this General Assembly from 
fifteen Presbyteries .... asking for some revision of the Confession 
of Faith ; and whereas, in the opinion of many of our ministers and 
people, some forms of statement in our Confession of Faith are liable 
to misunderstanding, and expose our system of doctrine to unmerited 
criticism." 

Here no dissatisfaction with the doctrine itself is recited ; 
rather it is suggested that criticism of the doctrine is un- 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



9 



merited and the fruit of misunderstanding, and may be 
remedied by a more careful and better statement of the 
same doctrine. It is only revision of " forms of state- 
ment," then, that is contemplated in the overture. And it 
avoids going so far as to propose even this. The preamble 
continues : 

"And whereas, Before any definite steps should be taken for re- 
vision of our Standards, it is desirable to know whether there is any 
general desire for such revision." 

The " revision of our Standards " here is, of course, the 
kind of revision denned in the preceding clause, and this 
sense is necessarily carried over to the concluding resolu- 
tion : 

" Therefore, resolved, That this General Assembly overture to the 
Presbyteries the following questions : 1. Do you desire a revision of 
the Confession of Faith ? 2. If so, in what respects and to what ex- 
tent ? " 

If anything were needed to vindicate the foregoing ex- 
position of the meaning of the overture, it would be sup- 
plied by the brief debate that was held in the Assembly 
upon its adoption. It was adopted just in this form on the 
distinct ground that it was a colorless inquiry into the will 
of the presbyteries, and did not propose either revision or 
no revision to them ; and so little was it thought to con- 
cern the substance of any doctrine that the moderator ruled 
that the introduction of doctrinal discussion into the debate 
concerning it was out of order. 

II. 

That even this colorless overture was not the outgrowth 
of any general and spontaneous movement in the Church, 
the history of its origination in the Assembly sufficiently 
shows. Its origin is traced to an overture sent up by the 



10 



ON THE EEVISION OF 



Presbytery of Nassau to the General Assembly of 1888, 
asking for the revision of the third chapter of the Confes- 
sion of Faith (that on " God's Eternal Decree ") on the 
ground that " in its present form it goes beyond the Word 
of God, and is opposed to the convictions and repugnant to 
the feelings of very many of our most worthy and thought- 
ful members." That the Assembly did not consider the 
matter very urgent is sufficiently evinced by its neglecting 
to act on it further than by referring it to the next Assem- 
bly. In the interval between the two Assemblies, the 
Presbytery of Nassau made a strong effort to enlist the 
Church at large in its overture, sending a circular letter 
out requesting the co-operation of the other presbyteries. 
The success of the effort was not striking — the great ma- 
jority of the presbyteries paying no attention to the request, 
and the great majority of those who did take up the mat- 
ter refusing in one way or another (usually by laying the 
appropriate motion on the table) to enter into the move- 
ment. Only some fifteen presbyteries out of upward of 
two hundred responded by appropriate action ; and it was 
in answer to their request thus obtained that the Assembly 
passed the overture. Even this meagre result, we shrewdly 
suspect, does not represent an impulse wholly native to our 
soil or Church. In these days of easy communication the 
ends of the earth are brought very close together, and con- 
tagion is easy if not unavoidable. It is significant that the 
Committee of the Presbytery of Nassau, in urging co-op- 
eration on the other presbyteries, were not willing to rest 
their appeal on the merits of the case ; but were careful to 
adduce the examples of the Scotch United Presbyterians 
and the Presbyterian Church of England. And the con- 
tagion of the present restlessness of the foreign Presbyte- 
rian Churches in their relation to the Confession of Faith, 
appears to us to be the source of all the apparent strength 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



11 



the present movement has among us. The adduction of 
the example of these foreign Churches — and, much more, 
any attempt to imitate it — is, however, the fruit of a mis- 
apprehension. Their struggles now are simply efforts to 
attain some such free and yet safe relation to the Confession 
of Faith as the American Church has enjoyed ever since it 
adopted the Westminster Symbols in 1729. From the 
very beginning, the American Church, whose present 
formula asks of its office-bearers acceptance of the West- 
minster Standards only as containing " the system of doc- 
trine" which they believe to be true and Scriptural, has 
possessed all the liberty which the Free and Established 
Churches of Scotland, for example, are now seeking. Up 
to to-day those Churches have required confession of sin- 
cere belief " of the whole doctrine contained in the Confes- 
sion of Faith .... to be the truths of God " and the con- 
fession of the signers' personal faith. Despite Dr. Cand- 
lish's efforts to explain it away, this obviously means and 
was intended by the Assembly of 1711, which framed the 
formula, to mean (in the present Principal Cunningham's 
words), acceptance of " the whole doctrine " (" every detail 
and syllable," as he elsewhere exaggeratingly expresses it,) 
of the Confession, not of its " doctrine as a whole." In- 
stead of being disturbed or infected by the restlessness of 
these Churches, bound to a confession with a strictness that 
must wound every tender conscience which finds any phrase- 
ology in the document to which it can raise any exception, we 
should pity them as brethren still in durance, and point out to 
them the safe pathway through which we escaped more than 
a century and a half ago. Certainly, so far as there are those 
among us who are led to believe that the Confession of Faith 
needs revision, because the foreign Churches are more or less 
restless under their relation to it, the movement is not only 
not a spontaneous one among us, but even a spurious one. 



12 



ON THE KEVISION OF 



III. 

"What has already been said will suggest some of the reasons 
why we do not think that the issue of the present overture 
will be extensive doctrinal change, or even important verbal 
change, in the Standards of the Presbyterian Church. As 
discussion goes on, it can scarcely fail to become increasingly 
plain to all, not only that the Presbyterian Church is satisfied 
with her Standards, but that she loves them and finds in them 
the best statement — most moderate and most inclusive as 
well as most logical and most complete — of the truth of 
God as she apprehends it, that has ever been framed. Some 
of the reasons that must, as it seems to us, operate to lead her, 
not blindly and fanatically, but intelligently and liberally, to 
refuse to undertake any important revision of these time- 
honored formularies may be indicated as follows : 

(1). So long as the Church remains as heartily convinced 
as she at present undoubtedly is, that what is known as the 
Calvinistic system of doctrine is the truth of God as deliv- 
ered through the prophets and apostles, she is without 
grievance in her relation to her Standards. There is always 
an infelicity in requiring individuals to affirm of any public 
Confession that it is the confession, in all its parts, of their 
private faith. A public document by that very fact cannot 
be in all its parts just the expression of the private faith 
which every one of its signers would frame for himself. 
To require a large body of ministers to affirm of any pub- 
lic Confession that they accept its " whole doctrine " as 
" truths of God" is a strain too great to put upon con- 
science, and must foster on the one hand a spirit of evasion 
and subterfuge, and on the other a keen sense of every 
infelicity in language or conception in the Confession and 
a restless anxiety to have them removed — hopeless task 
though this obviously is, seeing that the very phraseology 
which is oppressive to one is the only tolerable expression 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



13 



of the faith of another. The American Church has required 
of its office-bearers, from the beginning, however, subscrip- 
tion only to " all the essential and necessary articles," or 
as, in our later formula, to " the system of doctrine " in 
the Confession, as " good forms of sound words." In our 
view, this subscription is an ideal one. It does not ask us 
to affirm that the Westminster Confession is perfect or 
infallible, or that we adopt every proposition in it; but 
only that we heartily accept the system of doctrine taught 
in it, and all the doctrines that are essential to the integrity 
of that system. The office-bearer in the Presbyterian 
Church thus is merely asked to affirm that he recognizes in 
the Confession of Faith an expression — an adequate expres- 
sion — of the system of truth which he believes God has 
given to the Church. He is at liberty to believe, if he will, 
that the Heidelberg Catechism is an equally good or better 
expression of the same system ; or the Canons of the Synod 
of Dort ; or the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of Eng- 
land ; or any other sound Keformed creed. But he must 
believe in this system. So long as we are Calvinists, then, we 
say, the relation that Presbyterian office-holders bear to the 
Confession is an ideal one ; their subscription is just such as 
must operate, when honestly taken and administered, to keep 
out all the wrong men and to keep in all the right ones. 

(2). So long as we are Calvinists, we may add, our whole 
situation with reference to our Creed is one that is incapa- 
ble of improvement. The individual's relation to the Creed 
might conceivably be improved, by letting him frame his 
own creed, which with care might be made an exact tran- 
script of his personal faith ; but just in proportion as this 
individual credo fitted the idiosyncrasies of his personal 
conceptions and modes of expression, it would be unaccep- 
table in its details and forms to every other individual. 
No public creed can be framed which every individual of 



14 



ON THE EEVISIOJST OF 



some thousands of office-bearers can adopt as the exact 
expression of his personal faith. We need not go to the 
extreme of Mr. Taylor Innis, who says that " there is no 
honest or sane man who will pretend that any proposition 
in religious truth constructed by others, exactly expresses 
his own view of that religious truth "; but this is certainly 
in a measure true of all extended Confessions. However, 
theu, we should alter the Confession of Faith, whether little 
or much, however we burdened it with Declaratory State- 
ments, whether many or few, to whatever extent we should 
substitute for it other creeds, whether new or old, whether 
long or short, we should be at the end of the process ex- 
actly where we were in the beginning. We should still be 
face to face with a creed which we all could accept for sys- 
tem of doctrine, and which no one of us could accept in 
all its propositions and phrases. If our present Creed is 
acceptable to us, then, for system of doctrine — and that it 
is, ought to be evinced by the mere fact that we have all 
accepted it as such — it is hardly worth while to embark on 
extensive projects of revision in order to arrive at precisely 
the same haven from which we started out. 

(3). And so long as we are Calvinists, we may add again, 
it seems hopeless to expect to improve upon the Westmin- 
ster Confession in stating the system which we believe. 
The fact is that the Westminster Confession of Faith regis- 
ters the high-water mark of the confessional statement of 
Calvinistic doctrine. Men have spoken of it in these latter 
days, indeed, as cold, scholastic, logical — standing at an 
extreme point in the development of Calvinism ; and they 
have repeated these statements until many are ready to 
believe them. But it is almost impossible to avoid suspect- 
ing that such deliverances rest on insufficient acquaintance 
with the document itself. Logical no doubt it is — is to be 
logical a fault ? — but it is no less devout than logical. The 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



15 



product of an age " when " (as Dr. Alex. F. Mitchell de- 
scribes it) " the Chnrch was still under the happy influence 
of a marvellous revival, when the Word of God was felt as 
a living, quickening, transforming power, and preached, 
not as a tradition but as the very power and wisdom of 
God," and framed " by men of ripe scholarship and devoted 
piety, who have remained our models of earnest preaching, 
and our guides in practical godliness, even until this day," 
it would be strange, indeed, if it lacked that atmosphere 
and tone of vital godliness which, as a matter of fact, fills 
every phrase of it, and enters unawares into the heart of 
every one who really feeds on it. And it stands at an ex- 
treme point in the development of Calvinism, not in the 
sense that it embodies an extreme Calvinism, but only in 
the sense that it has skimmed the cream of moderate and 
tolerant Calvinistic thought. No Calvinism is sweeter, 
purer, more devout, more catholic, than the Calvinism of 
the Westminster Standards. The Confession of Faith is, 
as it has been well phrased, " a model of guarded strength 
in moderation." Baillie tells us that it was " cried up," at 
the time, " by many of their greatest opposites, as the best 
Confession yet extant "; and from that day to this, it has 
never ceased to command the admiration of even those who 
could not accept it — as, for example, of the late Dr. Curry, 
who characterized it as " the ablest, clearest, and most com- 
prehensive system of Christian doctrine ever framed." So 
intent were its framers on so stating doctrine as to throw 
the stress on the practical and religious value of it, and so 
careful were they to state it so moderately as to make it 
inclusive of all forms of truly Calvinistic thought, that it 
seems scarcely possible to touch one of their guarded clauses 
without both hardening and narrowing it. When once 
some specific revision is seriously attempted, the Church is 
likely to fall back on Dr. Mitchell's advice : " It will be 



16 



ON THE KEVISION OF 



time enough to think of change, when a school of theolo- 
gians of riper scholarship and more patient study, of higher 
culture and deeper piety, shall arise among us"; — which 
time is not yet. We will certainly do well to cling to the 
Westminster Confession until we can better it. 

(4) . In circumstances such as these, the historical integ- 
rity of so venerable and noble a document will appeal to 
the Church as worth preserving. Presbyterians are no 
relic-worshippers ; they claim the right, and have exercised 
it, of adapting their Creed to their living faith. But when 
nothing is to be gained and perhaps much lost they will 
not fail to consider it a certain vandalism to throw away, 
merely in the license of change, a flag under which so 
many battles have been fought and so many glorious victo- 
ries won, and perhaps even more glorious defeats suffered. 
They will not keep the old, merely because it is old ; but 
they will not exchange the tried and loved old banner for 
a doubtful new one, merely because it is new. 

(5) . Lastly, in learning to appreciate anew, as renewed 
study of it will enable it to do, the true breadth and catho- 
licity of the Westminster Confession, the Church is apt to 
remember, too, its value as a rallying-point for Christian 
unity. It was framed distinctly as an irenicon. The pur- 
pose of those engaged on it was to vindicate the faith of 
the English Church as not out of harmony with the Con- 
sensus of the Eeformed churches, and to bring together 
under one Confession the various bodies then in Great 
Britain. Its history is that of an irenicon. By its means 
the Churches of England and Scotland were brought for 
the first and only time under the bonds of a single Confes- 
sion. It was adopted by three distinct denominations. It 
remains to-day the creed of all the great Presbyterian 
Churches of the English-speaking world. Only yesterday 
two great denominations of American Presbyterians were 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



17 



able to unite on the Westminster Standards, pure and sim- 
ple. If we are to have another reunion of Presbyterians in 
America shortly, it must be on the same basis. Nay, such is 
its moderation and catholicity, that we may even hope that 
it may serve as a basis for even broader federations of Re- 
formed churches. Certainly, we may well listen to Dr. 
Mitchell's wise words : " Our only hope of a really united 
Presbyterian Church lies in substantial adherence to the 
Confession." We do not think Presbyterians will forget this 
in making up their minds how to deal with their Confession. 

Doubtless, as time passes, Presbyterians will think of 
other, perhaps more cogent reasons, for holding fast to what 
is so good. But the reasons already alleged will suffice to 
supply some ground for our judgment that we are not em- 
barked upon a discussion that is to see our old foundations 
of faith broken up. Meanwhile let us say that we earn- 
estly hope discussion will nowhere be suppressed. The 
more the Westminster Confession of Faith is studied, and 
the better it is understood, the less likely is it to be either 
abandoned, explained away, or patched up with scraps of 
cruder new thinking. " Destroy it not, for a blessing is 
in it." 



18 



ON THE REVISION OF 



II. 

WHAT IS THE CONFESSION OF FAITH ? * 

The call which the General Assembly has made upon 
the Presbyteries to consider, during this year, whether they 
desire any changes made in the Westminster Confession of 
Faith, must operate primarily to lead serious men to renew 
their study of this venerable document. Whatever may 
issue from the year's discussions, certainly nothing but 
good can come from this renewed study of the history and 
teaching of the standards to which all Presbyterian office- 
bearers have assented as " containing the system of doctrine 
taught in the Holy Scriptures." And certainly the results 
of the study cannot fail to quicken in our hearts gratitude 
to God for His gracious dealings with our fathers in ena- 
bling them to frame and to transmit through so many years 
to us, so complete and vitally devout a testimony to His 
truth as it has been revealed in His Word. We may be 
excused for feeling some pride in formularies which have 
commanded not only the assent of all classes of Calvinists 
for two hundred years, but also the admiration of the lib- 
eral-minded among other forms of faith, such as, for in- 
stance, Dean Stanley, who declares that the Westminster 
Confession of Faith " exhibits far more depth of theolog- 
ical insight than any other " Protestant Confession, and the 

* The substance of an address, delivered to the Presbytery of New 
Brunswick, at Dutch Keck, June 25, 1889 : and afterward printed 
in The Presbyterian Banner for Sept. 4, 1889. 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



19 



late Dr. Curry, editor of the New York Christian Advo- 
cate, who calls it " the ablest, clearest, and most compre- 
hensive system of Christian doctrine ever framed." 

PROVIDENTIAL PREPARATION FOR FRAMING THE WESTMINSTER 
CONFESSION. 

So remarkable a product, of course, was not obtained 
without a providential preparation, by which the framing 
of the Confession fell upon times and into the hands of 
men specially fitted for the task. ISTo one who looks back 
upon the history of early Protestantism can fail to perceive 
that the times were ripening toward the middle of the 
seventeenth century, and especially in England, for just 
such an enterprise. During the century or more that had 
elapsed since the Reformation, the Reformed Theology 
had developed into a mature and maturely tested system of 
truth, tried everywhere by the Scriptures and in the fires 
of controversy. The multitudes of Confessions which had 
been produced by the first age of the Reformation had 
served their purpose of testifying to the essential Christi- 
anity and to the Augustinianism of the scattered congrega- 
tions, and of uniting them in the bonds of a common sym- 
pathy and effort ; some of them had been re wrought or 
practically superseded by documents fuller or better adapted 
to the changing conditions ; and all were being collected, 
compared, harmonized under the pressure of the felt need 
of a comprehensive and universally acceptable statement of 
the Reformed faith. 

The course of controversy had also reached a stage pecul- 
iarly favorable for the confessional statement of truth. 
The first bitterness of both the Romish and Arminian con- 
troversies was over ; and while the results of these debates 
were garnered for the advantage of exact and carefully bal- 
anced statement, the sharpness of the anti-Romish polemic 



20 



ON THE EEYISION" OF 



of early Protestantism and of the Dutch anti-Arminian 
polemic was no longer felt necessary. Especially in Eng- 
land, where the Romanizing and Arminianizing school of 
Laud had recently been in the ascendency, and had not 
scrupled to make tyrannical use of its power, men of all 
shades of Augustinianism were compacted together in a 
common love, and were little inclined to narrowness or 
ecclesiastical tyranny. They had " been burnt in the hand 
by that kind before," as Dr. Tuckney, one of the chief 
members of the Assembly, expressed it. Thus, in the good 
providence of God, three important prerequisites to the 
framing of a Confession of permanent value were brought 
into conjunction: (1). The truth was prepared for well- 
considered and moderate statement, as over against its three 
permanent enemies — Romanism, Arminianism, and Prel- 
acy. ]STo Confession framed before the threshing out of 
these three controversies would have at all served the needs 
of the period which has intervened between the meeting 
of the "Westminster Assembly and to-day ; and no Confes- 
sion framed with its chief polemical sides turned toward 
them can be said to be growing obsolescent so long as these 
tendencies are as aggressive as they are to-day. (2). In 
the' course of these controversies, all the important forms 
of Calvinism had been developed, so that a Confession 
framed with the intention of including them all is still 
inclusive of all the important types of Calvinistic thought. 
And (3). The experience of the Calvinists during the 
Laudian oppression had compacted them into a single body, 
enabled them to look upon their differences as relatively 
unimportant, and inclined them to seek to frame a Confes- 
sion which should be inclusive of all soundly Calvinistic 
thought, and which should exclude only those errors which 
cut to the roots of the system which all Calvinists unite in 
believing to be the truth of God. 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



21 



But above all else, the theological thinking of the times 
was suffused, as perhaps has never been equally true, with 
the breath of vital piety. Great as it was in theology, this 
was the age of great preachers, even more than of great 
theologians. "We fall very far short," says Dr. A. F. 
Mitchell, very justly, " of the true conception of that time, 
unless we remember that it was a season of spiritual reviv- 
al, as deep and extensive as any that has since occurred in 
the history of the British churches." Or if we prefer to 
hear a secular historian : " The distinctive feature of Puri- 
tanism," says Mr. S. R. Gardiner, " was not to be found in 
its logical severity of doctrine, or in its peculiar forms of 
worship, but in its clear conception of the immediate rela- 
tion existing between every individual soul and its God, 
and in its firm persuasion that every man was intrusted 
with a work, which he was bound to carry out for the ben- 
efit of his fellow-creatures." The sermons of the day are 
still looked back to as among the most godly and power- 
ful ever preached, and as Dr. Mitchell reminds us, "No 
writings in practical divinity have been so extensively read, 
none have so long maintained their hold on the minds of 
the religiously disposed in Britain and America, as those of 
the great Puritan divines of the seventeenth century." 
Thus, while the theology of the Reformed churches was 
being matured, and the course of controversy was bringing 
it about that the deepest and broadest lines of thought, 
which run through all the Christian ages, were engrossing 
the minds of men, a body of pious and devoted preachers 
of the word was being prepared, who could not state the 
precious truths of the Gospel without suffusing their state- 
ment with the breath of true godliness. As Dr. Mitchell 
eloquently sums up: "The Assembly of divines which 
framed the Confession, may be said, humanly speaking, to 
have come just at the last moment of time when such an 



22 



ON THE EEVISION OF 



Assembly was possible, when the Church was still under 
the happy influence of a marvellous revival, when the Word 
of God was felt as a living, quickening, transforming 
power, and preached not as a tradition, but as the very 
power and wisdom of God, by men of ripe scholarship and 
devoted piety, who have remained our models of earnest 
preaching and our guides in practical godliness, even unto 
this day." 

SPIRIT AND INTENTION OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY. 

The English Reformation was from the beginning Augus- 
tinian ; and it was the Anglo-Catholic irruption which first 
broke its cordial relations with the other Reformed Churches 
as well as its internal harmony. The doctrinal (as distin- 
guished from the more pressing ecclesiastical) object for 
which the Westminster Assembly was called together and 
to the subserving of which it addressed itself, was the two- 
fold one of vindicating the Protestant soundness of the 
Church of England before the general body of the Re- 
formed Churches, as well as the restoration of its internal 
harmony and the institution of a doctrinal uniformity with 
the Church of Scotland. Catholicity and harmony were, 
therefore, its key-notes. Of course there was no intention 
of embracing the errors of Romanism, or of Arminianism, 
or of Prelacy ; these were the causes and occasions of all 
the difficulties which the English Church had had to suffer. 
But its formularies were meant to be as broad and catholic 
as the accepted theology of the Reformation would permit ; 
and it was hoped that by its labors all true Protestants in 
Britain might be united in defense of the sum and sub- 
stance of the doctrine of the Reformed Churches. " If its 
members," says Dr. Mitchell advisedly, " had one idea more 
dominant than another, it was not, as they are sometimes 
still caricatured, that of setting forth with greater one-sided- 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



23 



ness and exaggeration the doctrines of election and preter- 
ition (for they did little more as to these mysterious topics 
than repeat what Ussher had already formulated), but that 
of setting forth the whole scheme of reformed doctrine in 
harmonious development in a form of which their country 
should have no cause to be ashamed in presence of any of 
the sister Churches of the Continent, and above all in a 
form which would conduce greatly to the fostering of 
Christian knowledge and Christian life." "Working in this 
spirit, and especially with a desire to retain the essence of 
the earlier English and Irish Articles (possibly as a vindica- 
tion of their historical continuity as the Church of Eng- 
land), everything narrow or one-sided was excluded, and a 
strong effort was made to include all legitimate shades of 
Calvinistic opinion. The publication of the Minutes of 
the Assembly reveals this catholic and inclusive tendency 
in a very strong light. At every point care was taken to 
reach substantial unanimity, and it was ever deemed a suf- 
ficient objection to a mode of statement that it was exclu- 
sive of one or another type of Calvinism. Free speech was 
permitted to or rather demanded of all ; and perhaps in no 
council before or since have all doctrinal points been more 
thoroughly debated, more anxiously canvassed or more 
carefully stated. The result is that these Standards are a 
model of guarded strength in moderation, and have by 
their own inherent merit won their way to acceptance in 
more churches and retained their vigor through longer 
years than perhaps any other Protestant creed. As they 
are the most complete, so are they the most carefully 
framed, and the most inclusive, and the most acceptable, 
of all the standards of the Eef ormation. It can scarcely be 
necessary to stop to point out in detail the characteristic 
excellences of the Confession : its clear analysis, its lucid 
definitions, its atmosphere of devout piety, its complete- 



24 



OUST THE KEVISION OF 



Bess, its logical exactness, the richness of its phraseology. 
It will perhaps be more useful to occupy ourselves with 
some remarks upon a few of the chief objections that are 
most commonly brought against it. Thus, by a negative 
path, we may yet, perhaps, find our way to some increased 
appreciation of its excellences. 

THE CONFESSION A DOCTRINAL STANDARD. 

1. It is frequently said, for instance, that the Confession 
is too formal, logical, analytical, theological in its form ; 
and a creed more vital and religious is desiderated. It is 
not infrequently contrasted with the earlier Reformation 
creeds in this respect. There is this much truth underly- 
ing this objection: that the earlier Reformers needed to 
vindicate their position as Christians, in breaking away 
from the historical Church, and the form and contents of 
the creeds of the first age are affected by this fact ; whereas 
by the middle of the seventeenth century it was not their 
Christianity that the Puritans needed to vindicate (that was 
evident to all men), but their doctrine that they desired to 
bring to a clear expression. In this sense the Westminster 
Confession is a theological rather than a religious docu- 
ment. It is a doctrinal standard ; its purpose is to define 
truth rather than to apply it. As such it is analytical and 
logical in its order and forms of statement, and seeks to 
present the truths of God in a concatenated system which 
will appeal to the devout mind and instruct it in the truth, 
rather than directly to lay them on the heart. This can be 
esteemed a fault only if we misconceive the purpose and 
uses of a Confession as analogous to those of a sermon. If 
we understand, as we ought, a Confession to be a document 
intended to testify to the truth, to stand as a test of sound 
teaching, and to serve as a text-book of doctrine, we shall 
ask it to be more "religious" than "theological" in form 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 25 

as little as we would ask the same, say for instance, of Dr. 
A. A. Hodge's " Outlines of Theology." That it should 
be filled from end to end with the breath of devotion — 
that the whole and every part should be redolent of the 
everywhere present Spirit — is true ; but in this sense the 
Confession is the most " religious " of books, and no one who 
has really fed upon it has failed to draw from it draughts 
of spiritual strength.* The objection is thus founded on a 
misapprehension of what a Confession is, if not also on an 
insufficient appreciation of the character of this particular 
Confession. There seems to be, in a word, some confusion 
of mind abroad which confounds a doctrinal standard with 
an exhortation on the one hand, or with a liturgical credo 
on the other — a confusion of thought, which, if carried to 
its logical conclusions, would ban all dogmatic treatises in 
favor of the sermons and liturgies of the world. Thus the 
Confession is condemned for not being what it does not 
profess to be, and what it could not be and continue to 
serve the ends for which it was framed and for which it 
continues to exist. The real question is, whether Churches 
need doctrinal standards as well as sermons and prayers — a 
theology as well as a life. 

THE CONFESSION BASED ON THE LOVE OF GOD. 

2. It is frequently objected again that the Confession 
makes too little relatively of the love of God and too much 
relatively of His sovereignty, and thus reverses the emphasis 
of the Bible. The framers of the Confession are not 
responsible, however, for this separation of G-od's love and 
sovereignty ; to them His sovereignty seemed a loving sov- 
ereignty, and His love a sovereign love, and in founding 
the whole fabric of their Confession on the idea of God's 



* Compare for example, Palmer's ThornweU's Life and Letters, pp. 
162 and 165. 



26 



ON THE REVISION OF 



undeserved favor to lost sinners, they understood them- 
selves to be glorifying His love to sinners. It is perfectly 
true that they seldom make use of the term " love "; but 
this is due to the exactness of their phraseology, by which 
they prefer to speak of God's " goodness " and " grace " — 
by the one of which terms they designate His general love 
and by the other His special love for His people. When 
this is understood, so far are they from neglecting to em- 
phasize the love of God, that it is rather within the truth 
to say that there is no other one subject so repeatedly and 
emphatically and lovingly dwelt upon. The " goodness " 
of God is one of His essential attributes (II., i.) and is in- 
finite (V., iv.) ; nay, all " goodness " is in and of Him 
(II., ii.). It was in order to manifest His "goodness" that 
He created the world (TV., i.) ; and hence it is manifested 
by the light of nature (I., i.) — even that He is good and 
doeth good to all (XXI., i.) ; as also by the course of provi- 
dence (I., i. ; V., iv.), which is so administered as to redound 
to the praise of His " goodness " (IV., i.). Even His deal- 
ings with sin manifest His goodness (V., iv.). Especially 
does His treatment of the elect, however, flow from His free 
and unchangeable love (XVII., ii. ; III., v. ; V., v.) ; His 
love follows them at every step, and every separate blessing 
bestowed upon them is a "grace": effectual calling (X., 

ii. ), faith (XIV., i.), justification (XI., iv.), pardon (XV., 

iii. ), adoption (XII., i.), each is reckoned among the saving 
graces (XIII., i. ; XVI., iii. ; XVII., i. ; IX., iv.). All His 
acts to His children are those of a gracious God (V., v.), all 
things being made to work together for their good (V., 
vii.), even His correctings being gracious (V., v.) and all to 
the praise of His glorious grace (III., v.). There is cer- 
tainly no lack of emphasis on God's love here ; though no 
doubt it is His sovereign love that is emphasized. Nor is it 
at all true that in glorifying God's infinite love for His 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 27 

children, the Confession minimizes or fails to give due 
recognition to His unspeakable love for all His reasonable 
creatures. He is the God of love : " Most loving, gracious, 
merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, 
forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, the rewarder of 
them that diligently seek him " (II., i.). Moved by this 
love He has voluntarily condescended to covenant with men 
as men, with a view to their fruition of Him as their bless- 
edness and reward (VII., i.) ; and when men had spurned 
this offered favor, He was pleased to make a second cove- 
nant, " wherein he freely offered unto sinners life and sal- 
vation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him, 
that they may be saved " (VIL, iii.) — an assertion of the 
universal sincere offer of salvation in Christ which is not 
taken away, but rather established, by the immediately sub- 
sequent assertion that God has further taken care that it 
shall not in all cases remain without fruition. To overlook 
these and similar passages in the effort to represent the 
Confession as disregarding the proportion of faith is most 
seriously to misrepresent its teaching. As a matter of fact 
the Confession builds its whole fabric on God's love, and 
emphasizes His general love quite as strongly as the Scrip- 
tures themselves ; although, like the Scriptures, it does not 
substitute a general benevolence for the whole round of 
Divine attributes, or deny His sovereignty or His justice in 
proclaiming His love. 

THE CONFESSION NOT SUPRALAPSAEIAN. 

3. The most remarkable objection which has been brought 
of late against the Confession, however, is directed against 
the statement of the doctrine of the " Decree of God " in 
the third chapter. In apparent forgetfulness of the ninth 
chapter of Romans and similar scriptures, it is said that 
this statement goes beyond Scripture ; it is said that the 



28 



ON THE KEVISION OF 



Westminster Confession stands alone among the Calvinistic 
Confessions of the Reformation in its statement of this 
doctrine ; it is even said that the language of the Confes- 
sion is here supralapsarian. What can be meant by some 
of these objections it is somewhat difficult to understand. 
Many — of whom Mr. Hard wick and Dr. Schaff are exam- 
ples — seem to consider it illegitimate to state the doctrine 
of reprobation at all in a Confession. But the Westmin- 
ster Confession does not stand alone in doing this ; in vary- 
ing measures of fullness, the Second Helvetic Confession, 
the Gallic and Belgic Confessions, the Irish Articles, the 
Canons of the Synod of Dort, and the Formula Consensus 
Helvetica, state the doctrine. Nor can this view be consist- 
ently defended. Eo doubt, as the English delegates ad- 
vised the divines of Dort, both "the sublime mystery of 
predestination," and still more "the mystery of reproba- 
tion," are subjects that ought to be*" handled sparingly and 
prudently," and treated of only " in the proper time and 
place, with tenderness and judgment," and thus, indeed, 
the Confession (III., viii.) unites with them in advising; 
but is not a confession " a proper time and place " ? No 
less an one than Calvin teaches us how impossible it is to 
avoid confessing the doctrine of sovereign reprobation if 
we confess the doctrine of election, of which it is not the 
logical inference, but the other half— writing with some 
sharpness : " Many, as if they wished to avert odium from 
God, so confess election as to deny that any one is repro- 
bated. But this is puerile and absurd, because election 
itself could not exist without being opposed to reprobation. 
God is said to separate those whom He adopts to salvation. 
It were worse than absurd to say that chance gives others, 
or their own efforts acquire for them, what election alone 
confers on a few. Whom God passes by, therefore, He 
reprobates, and from no other cause than His determination 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



29 



to exclude them from the inheritance which He predestines 
for His children " (Instit., III., 23, 1). " That the only 
will of God," says Dr. Whitaker, advisedly, "is the cause 
of reprobation, being taken as it is contrary to predestina- 
tion,* not only St. Paul and St. Augustine, but the best 
and learnedest of the schoolmen have largely and invinci- 
bly proved." And not only the " schoolmen," but the 
Reformed Church at large — in its theologians and Confes- 
sions — have recognized the same obvious fact. Let any 
body of typical, Reformed theologians be looked into, and 
the result is the same. A glance over the citations in 
Heppe's "Dogmatic of the Evangelical Reformed Church" 
will be sufficient for most men. Or if we desire rather 
the testimony of certain prophets of our own, may not the 
general attitude of moderate Calvinists on the sovereignty 
of reprobation (pretention) be sufficiently attested by the 
following three somewhat typical American theologians? 
" That as God has sovereignly destinated certain persons, 
called the elect, through grace to salvation, so he has sov- 
ereignly decreed to withhold his grace from the rest ; and 
that this withholding rests upon the unsearchable counsel 
of his own will, and is for the glory of his sovereign 
power" (Dr. A. A. Hodge, Commentary on Conf of 
Faith, pp. 107-108). "Reprobation. This includes two 
parts, Pretention and Reprobation (Final Condemnation). 
The pretention is a sovereign act ; the reprobation is a judi- 
cial act " (Dr. H. B. Smith, System of Christian Theol- 
ogy, p. 508). " The Reformed doctrine assumes that some 



* Let this clause be observed : both Calvin and Whitaker teach that 
reprobation is sovereign, not punishment. Punishment rests "on their 
sins," reprobation on God's will. It is perhaps more usual, and less 
liable to mistake, to use the terms negative reprobation and positive rep- 
robation, or the terms pretention and reprobation to express the two 
stages. But the doctrine is the same, under whatever phraseology. 



30 



ON THE EEVISION OF 



men perish for their sins ; and that those who are thus left 
to perish are passed by not because they are worse than 
others, but in the sovereignty of God" (Dr. C. Hodge, 
Systematic Theology, II., 652 ; cf. pp. 712, 720, 723, sq.). 

Is the Westminster Confession singular, then, in the place 
that is given to the statement of this deep mystery in the 
ordering of the matter of the Confession ? By no means — 
both the Irish Articles and the Formula Consensus Helve- 
tica give it precisely the same place — the place given it, 
moreover, by the great body of systematic theologians ; as, 
for instance, to mention only a few names— Turrettine, 
Amesius, Marck, De Moore, Mastricht, Maccovius, Mare- 
sius, Burmann, and John Milton and J ohn Norton among 
the oldest ; Dick, Eidgley, John Brown, John Gill, Dwight, 
in the last age; and in our own day, A. A. Hodge, Dab- 
ney, Strong, Hovey, Patton, Shedd, Yan Oosterzee, and 
even the Lutherans, Luthardt and Weidner ! ~No one of 
them likely to be charged with supralapsarianism ! The 
fact of the matter is, this is the proper logical order in 
which to treat of the Decree of God, under which general 
head Predestination and Reprobation fall ; and every Con- 
fession which treats the Decree of God in general, treats 
of it here, and with the one exception of the Shorter 
Catechism, they all treat of Predestination and Reproba- 
tion in immediate subordination to this caption. The 
Shorter Catechism (like the theologian Pictet) illustrates 
another possible distribution of the matter, viz., to treat of 
God's decree in general here and to postpone the treat- 
ment of the special decree which relates to human destiny 
until the doctrine of salvation is taken up. And this vari- 
ation is only a question of convenience of treatment, with- 
out dogmatic significance one way or the other. To erect 
this mere matter of preferred order of statement into a 
substantial difference between the Confession and the 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



31 



Shorter Catechism is a most remarkable procedure ; and to 
propose to revise the Confession because it treats the whole 
subject of the decree together and at the head of God's 
works, is more remarkable still. Shall we revise all the 
theologians mentioned above, who adopt the same arrange- 
ment of matter, along with the Confession ? This quarrel 
is uot with the Confession, but with the whole body and 
the very conception of Keformed theology. 

But " the language of the Confession is supralapsarian." 
If this were so, it would certainly be remarkable. It is 
confessed that " the great body of the members " of the 
Assembly that framed it " were on the other side." It is 
confessed that the Shorter Catechism, framed by the same 
body, is infralapsarian. It is confessed that the formularies 
were formed with the utmost care — and with the utmost 
care to make them exhibit the accordance of the doctrine of 
the English Church with the other Keformed Churches, the 
creeds of none of which, it is confessed, are supralapsarian. 
It is proven that this very section is based upon and drawn 
from the Irish Articles, which were prepared by the mod- 
erate hand of Ussher, who certainly was no supralapsarian. 
The publication of the minutes of the Westminster Assem- 
bly reveals to us very clearly that those who framed this 
language intended that it should not be supralapsarian. A 
number of amendments were made in the original draught 
(which itself was not supralapsarian) with the expressed 
purpose of preventing it from even seeming to tend that 
way. Thus the words "in the same decree," and the 
words " to bring this to pass God ordained to permit the 
fall," were stricken out. Their professed purpose was, as 
Mr. Keynolds expressed it, not to " put disputes and scho- 
lastic things into a Confession of Faith "; or as Mr. Calamy 
said, " that nothing be put in one way or the other." Fi- 
nally, no one seems previously to have discovered the lan- 



32 



ON THE KEVISIOK OF 



guage to be supralapsarian. To quote only three witnesses : 
Dr. Charles Hodge ("Systematic Theology," ii. 317)— 
" The symbols of that Assembly, while they clearly imply 
the infralapsarian view, were yet so framed as to avoid 
offence to those who adopted the supralapsarian theory." 
Dr. Philip Schaff (" Creeds of Christendom," L, 454)— 
" The doctrine of predestination, in its milder, infralapsa- 
rian form, was incorporated into the Geneva Consensus, 
the Second Helvetic, the French, Belgic, and Scotch Con- 
fessions, the Lambeth Articles, the Irish Articles, the 
Canons of Dort, and the Westminster Standards?** (Cf ., L, 
635, et jpassim.) Dr. Alex. F. Mitchell (" Minutes," p. 
55) — " The same care was taken to avoid the insertion of 
anything which could be regarded as indicating a prefer- 
ence for supralapsarianism." Last of all, the language 
itself is not supralapsarian, but such careful, moderate, 
guarded language as all Calvinists may adopt, not to say 
as natural religion itself forces on those who believe in an 
infinite personal God. Twisse himself, for example, points 
out to us that the statements here are not disputed, but 
common, ground among the Calvinistic parties. "It is 
true," he says, " there is no cause of breach either of unity 
or amity between our divines upon this difference " — of su- 
pra- and infra-lapsarianism — " as I showed in my digres- 
sions ('De Predestination,' Digress. 1), seeing neither of 
them derogates either from the prerogatives of Cod's grace 
or of His sovereignty over His creatures, to give grace to 
whom He will, or to deny it to whom He will ; and, con- 
sequently, to make whom He will vessels of mercy, and 
whom He will vessels of wrath ; but equally they stand for 
the divine "prerogative in each. And as for the ordering 
of God's decrees of creation, permission of the fall of 
Adam, giving grace of faith and repentance unto some 
and denying it to others, and finally, saving some and damn- 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



33 



ing others, whereupon only arise the different opinions as 
touching the object of predestination and reprobation, it is 
merely apex logicus, a point of logic. And were it not a 
mere madness to make a breach of unity or charity in the 
Church of God merely for a point of logic?" * Some in 
these last days seem scarcely to share either Twisse*s clear- 
ness of apprehension or his charity. 

How, then, are we to account for the frequent assertion 
to-day that " the language is supralapsarian " % Partly by 
a strange confusion which confounds the order in which 
the decrees are stated with the statement of the order of the 
decrees ; and which thus, because predestination is treated 
of before creation, asserts that predestination is " placed " 
before creation. As well might it be argued that because 
Chap. I. treats of the Scriptures, and Chap. II. of God, 
therefore the Confession teaches that the Scriptures are 
the " logical prius" to God. Partly, again, by an unwill- 
ingness to take the trouble to read the Confession as we 
would any other book, consecutively, following its line of 
thought and analysis. This third chapter, for example, is 
ordered thus : First, the nature and scope of God's decree, 
in general, is defined in Sections 1 and 2 ; secondly, the 
application of these general facts is made to the special 
fact of human destiny in Sections 3-8. In making the 
application,^^ the fact is asserted that God's sovereign, 
particular, and unchangeable decree embraces also the des- 
tiny of His creatures, in Sections 3 and 4 ; and then the 
details of how God deals with those whose varying destinies 
are included in the decree, and on what grounds the varying 
destinies are dealt to them, are asserted in Sections 5-7 ; a 
final section being added on the care with which such mys- 



* Twisse, The RicJies of God's Love unto the Vessels of Mercy, etc., p. 
35 ; quoted by Cunningham : The Reformers, etc., p. 363. 



34 



ON THE EEVISION OF 



terious subjects should be dealt with in preaching (Sec. 8). 
This whole objection to the Confession reduces thus to the 
opinion that the Confession ought not to state the fact that 
God's decree embraces the destiny of His creatures until 
after it has stated the grounds on which He deals diversely 
with His creatures — predestinating some men to life " out 
of His mere free grace and love " (Sec. 5) ; and " ordaining 
others to dishonor and wrath " for their sin, to the praise 
of His glorious justice (Sec. 7). With this opinion most 
will disagree — while, in the end, all will conclude that it 
raises a very petty point. 

But why, it may be asked, leave the Confession in a form 
that needs this explanation ? The answer is, that it does 
not need this explanation ; the matter is obvious to every 
one who will read the chapter consecutively. It needs a 
commentary to make it mmmderstood. And let it be ob- 
served, in conclusion, that as all objections to this section 
arise from strange misapprehension, so all proposed reme- 
dies for the assumed evil result in materially narrowing the 
Confession. It is so phrased now as to cover the ground 
common to supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism, with- 
out condemning or asserting either as over against the 
other : * the alterations would positively exclude supralap- 
sarianism. This is an alteration in the wrong direction. 

* Let it be observed that this is not to say that the language is am- 
biguous, as has sometimes been presumed. The language is not ambig- 
uous, but perfectly straightforward and unmistakable. What the 
Assembly did was, not to seek phraseology which was capable of 
either a supra- or an infra-lapsarian interpretation, but to confine them- 
selves to stating the positive common ground on which both alike stand. 
The third chapter of the Confession, thus, is simple, essential Calvin- 
ism — the common belief of all Calvinistic parties. Supra- and infra- 
lapsarianism disagree in some things and they agree in some things. 
This is what they agree in. 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



35 



THE CONFESSION DOES NOT CONDEMN INFANTS. 

4. This narrowing tendency of most of the presently pro- 
posed revisions of the Confession is especially evident in the 
objections brought against the Section (X., iii.) on " elect 
infants." This section was added to the Confession during 
the course of the debate on an order from the Assembly to 
its Committee " that something be expressed in fit place 
concerning infants' regeneration in their infancy." The 
purpose of its addition, therefore, was in the interests of 
infant salvation — in order to show that though incapable of 
the outward call of the Word, they might nevertheless be 
saved by the inward call of the Holy Spirit. The phrase, 
as originally reported, reads in the Minutes, " Elect of in- 
fants," and the " of " may have been subsequently dropped, 
Dr. Briggs thinks as a mere matter of style — possibly, how- 
ever, as a means of making the statement somewhat more 
inclusive ; while it is the most probable of all suggestions 
that the presence of the of in the Minutes is due only to 
the carelessness of the scribe.* However this may be, the 
form in which the section was adopted is capable of such 
interpretation as to make it inclusive of several views. 
Those who believe that some of those who die in infancy 
are God's elect and are saved by His grace, while others 
are left in their original sin to perish, can accept this state- 
ment ; but they have no exclusive right to it, as has been 
so constantly asserted of late. The statement does not im- 

* Certainly the scribe is very careless of exact phraseology elsewhere 
in his jotting down the subjects of debate. For example, if I have 
counted correctly, the third chapter is mentioned more or less formally 
by name ten times in the Minutes. In five the plural is used (pp. 114, 
126, 127, 322, 323) ; in five the singular (pp. 126, 129, 130, 245, 246). 
The Minutes, as we have them, are somewhat loosely-kept notes, and it 
will not do to hang a theory on the exact phraseology they use in a 
case like the present. 



36 



ON THE REVISION OF 



ply that some infants, dying in infancy, are non-elect and 
exclude the opposite opinion. Those who believe that all 
those who die in infancy are elect, have also standing- 
ground here. The statement is colorless,* and only fails 
clearly to assert that all that die in infancy are elect — leav- 
ing that to private opinion, while its purpose is only to assert 
that whoever of the elect die in infancy are saved never- 
theless, even though incapable of the outward call of the 
Word. It is important to observe (what is often over- 
looked) that we are reading now the chapter on " Effectual 
Calling," and the subject under treatment is God's elect, — 
how they are brought to actual participation in salva- 
tion. God's elect, (say Sections 1 and 2,) and they only, are 
saved, by being effectually called " by His Word and Spir- 
it." God's elect, (Section 3 goes on to say,) who die in in- 
fancy, or are otherwise incapable of being called by the 
Word, are nevertheless saved by the inward call of the 
Spirit. The point, then, is not how many infants are elect, 
but what becomes of God's elect if they die in infancy ? 
They are saved, says the Confession in answer to this ques- 
tion, while the former question it does not raise, and, of 
course, does not answer. If we raise that question, then, 
it is left for us to answer it ; and for all that the Confession 
says, we may answer it any way we choose. Nothing is 
implied ; the ground is free. When it is proposed to 
revise the statement so as to make it assert that all that die 
in infancy are elect, then, (1) it is proposed to break in 
upon the beautiful, logical ordering of the matter of the 

* "Colorless" is the right word, not "ambiguous." There is no 
"ambiguity" of statement: what is asserted is clearly and directly 
said. But the statement has nothing to do with the question of 
whether there are non-elect infants dying in infancy ; and leaves, 
therefore, without "ambiguity," room for any variety of opinions on 
that subject. 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



37 



Confession, and make it treat a question of election, when 
it is treating of God's dealing with His elect. And (2) it 
is proposed to narrow the basis of the Confession, so as that 
it will exclude all, not only who believe that some that die 
in infancy are non-elect (happily, a very small number now- 
adays, even if any exist outside of sacramentarian churches), 
but also those who are doubtful as to whether we have any 
decisive Scripture teaching on the subject— of whom there 
are many. As the Confession stands, however, it asserts, 
what all Calvinists must admit to be true, viz. : that " elect 
infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by 
Christ through the Spirit." It is because Calvinists be- 
lieve that this is strictly true and Scriptural that they lay 
away their little ones in grief mingled with chastened joy 
and praise God that He has suspended their salvation on no 
" means of grace." On the other hand, it asserts and im- 
plies nothing that any Calvinist doubts. Those who say 
that it implies that some infants that die in infancy are 
non-elect, are not only bad exegetes, but have forgotten 
their English grammar. " Elect infants, dying in infancy " 
can mean nothing but " such elect infants as die in infancy," 
and this does not imply that there are some infants dying 
in infancy that are not elect, but that there are some elect 
infants who do not die in infancy. 

THE CONFESSION NOT INFALLIBLE OR PERFECT. 

Let these instances of objections — probably the most se- 
rious that are now being urged against the Confession — 
serve as examples of what may be called the insufficiency 
of the plea on which we are asked to embark upon a revi- 
sion of it. It will be impossible to pass in review here the 
whole body of more or less unimportant objections which 
have been added to them, such as those that concern the 
six days of creation (the language of which is Scriptural 



38 



ON THE REVISION OF 



and hence open to whatever explanation Scripture may 
receive), or the declaration that the Pope is Antichrist. 
Let us conclude, then, by observing that to reject the asser- 
tion that the Confession is in need of changes in these par- 
ticulars or in others like them, is not tantamount to claiming 
that it is infallible or perfect. We are discussing this year 
a matter of expediency, not a matter of right. No one 
doubts that it is in the power and right of the Church to 
revise or rewrite her Confession. But that is not the point. 
The point is, does the Confession need revision in order to 
ease the consciences of our office-bearers in signing it, or to 
fit it to be our Confession, as a Church, of the system of 
faith taught in God's Word i This is the question which 
we answer in the negative. And here it is important for 
us to distinguish between a public and a private Confession. 
Presumably, few of us can read the Confession through 
without finding some form of words which, had he himself 
only to consider, he might conceive it well to improve. 
For one's own Confession, not moderate, inclusive catholic- 
ity, but sharp individual exclusiveness might be desirable. 
But for a public Confession the virtue of virtues is that it 
shall be as catholic and inclusive as loyalty to the truth of 
God, as we conceive it, will permit. The chief virtues of 
the Westminster Confession may be said to be three : (1) 
sound Calvinism ; (2) moderation and inclusiveness in its 
statement of Calvinism ; and (3) depth of religious atmos- 
phere. By means of these three virtues it is made intrin- 
sically the best Calvinistic Confession for public use ever 
framed, and any alteration of it runs great risk both of 
narrowing and worsening it. It may no doubt be amended 
successfully ; it has been amended successfully in America. 
But as a public Confession it stands now in little need of 
amendment ; and our free and safe relation to it as office- 
bearers—accepting it only for " system of doctrine " — re- 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



39 



lieves us from all necessity of seeking to conform it in 
every point to our own individual, and therefore relatively 
narrow, views. Under these circumstances, it is submitted 
that the best answer to the overture of the General Assem- 
bly which the Presbyteries can give, is that they do not 
perceive the need of, and therefore do not desire, any re- 
vision of the Confession of Faith ; and to this answer the 
present writer has suggested to his own Presbytery that the 
following reasons be attached, as inter alia, the reasons that 
determine its action,* to wit : 

REASONS FOR NOT REVISING THE CONFESSION. 

1. Our free but safe formula of acceptance of the Con- 
fession of Faith, by which we " receive and adopt it " as 
" containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy 
Scriptures " (Form of Government, XV., xii.), relieves us 
of all necessity for seeking, each one to conform the Con- 
fession in all its propositions to his individual preferences, 
and enables us to treat the Confession as a public document, 
designed, not to bring each of our idiosyncrasies to expres- 
sion, but to express the general and common faith of the 
whole body — which it adequately and admirably does. 

2. Enjoying this free yet hearty relation to the Confes- 
sion, we consider that our situation toward our standards is 
incapable of improvement. However much or little the 
Confession were altered, we could not, as a body, accept 
the altered Confession in a closer sense than for system of 
doctrine ; and the alterations could not better it as a public 
Confession, however much it might be made a closer ex- 
pression of the faith of some individuals among us. In 
any case, it could not be made, in all its propositions and 

* At their autumn meeting at New Brunswick, the Presbytery of 
New Brunswick adopted the paper here appended as part of its reply 
to the Assembly's overture. 



40 



ON THE EEVISIOTT OF 



forms of statement, the exact expression of the personal 
faith of each one of our thousands of office-bearers. 

3. In these circumstances we are unwilling to mar the 
integrity of so venerable and admirable a document, in 
the mere license of change, without prospect of substan- 
tially bettering our relation to it, or its fitness to serve as 
an adequate statement of the system of doctrine which 
we all heartily believe. The historical character and the 
hereditary value of the creed should, in such a case, be 
preserved. 

4. We have little hope of substantially bettering the 
Confession, either in the doctrines it states or in the man- 
ner in which they are stated. When we consider the 
guardedness, moderation, fullness, lucidity, and catholicity 
of its statement of the Augustinian system of truth, and of 
the several doctrines which enter into it, we are convinced 
that the Westminster Confession is the best, safest, and 
most acceptable statement of the truths and the system 
which we most surely believe that has ever been formu- 
lated ; and we despair of making any substantial improve- 
ments upon its forms of sound words. On this account we 
not only do not desire changes on our own account, but 
should look with doubt and apprehension upon any efforts 
to improve upon it by the Church. 

5. The moderate, catholic, and irenical character of the 
Westminster Confession has always made it a unifying 
document. Framed as an irenicon, it bound at once the 
Scotch and English Churches together ; it was adopted and 
continues to be used by many Congregational and Baptist 
churches as the confession of their faith ; with its accom- 
panying Catechisms it has lately been made the basis of 
union between the two great Presbyterian bodies which 
united to constitute our Church ; and we are convinced 
that if Presbyterian union is to go further, it must be on 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



41 



the basis of the Westminster Standards, pure and simple. 
In the interests of Church union, therefore, as in the inter- 
ests of a broad and irenical, moderate and catholic Calvin- 
ism, we deprecate any changes in our historical standards, 
to the system of doctrine contained in which we unabatedly 
adhere, and with the forms of statement of which we find 
ourselves in hearty accord. 



42 



ON THE REVISION OF 



III. 

DOES THE CONFESSION NEED EEVISION?* 

I have read with great interest the criticisms upon the 
paper which was presented by me to the Presbytery of 
New Brunswick, with which Dr. Yan Dyke has honored 
me in the Herald and Presbyter of July 31. If I cor- 
rectly understand the drift of Dr. Yan Dyke's remarks, he 
argues that revision of the Confession is necessary, and he 
is willing to rest this alleged necessity on three criticisms of 
the Confession, which he states. It does not seem proper 
for me to pass these suggestions by without remark, and 
the less so, that the three points which Dr. Yan Dyke has 
singled out are those which have been most frequently 
dwelt upon by those who advocate revision. We may 
hope, then, that if these do not prove adequate reasons for 
undertaking the task, it may be admitted that there is little 
serious call for it in the churches. 

Probably, however, before entering into a discussion of 
these test criticisms, I ought to say a word in general about 
the New Brunswick paper, which has furnished occasion 
for Dr. Yan Dyke's article. Let this be as brief as possi- 
ble. That paper was intended to bring together what is, in 
essence, a threefold argument against the necessity of 
revision — an argument which, if founded on facts, ought 

* Printed in the Herald and Presbyter for August 21, August 28, and 
September 4, 1889, in reply to an article by Rev. Dr. Henry J. Van 
Dyke in criticism of the paper adopted by the Presbytery of New 
Brunswick, for which see above, pages 89-41. 



THE CONFESSION OE FAITH. 



43 



to prevail. It was intended to urge the following points, 
viz. : (1) Revision is not necessary in order to ease the con- 
sciences of our office-bearers in accepting the Confession ; 
(2) it is not needed in order to correct any serious infelici- 
ties in expressing the doctrines we profess ; and (3) it will 
throw difficulties in the way of the realization of hopes of 
church union, already being entertained by the Church. In 
all this there is certainly no claim to perfection and infalli- 
bility for the Confession ; there is no arraignment of the 
right or power of the Church to undertake a revision of it. 
The question is a question of expediency. The point is, 
Does the Confession need revision in order to ease the con- 
sciences of our office-bearers in accepting it as a test of 
soundness, or in order to fit it to be our testimony to the 
truth of God as taught in His word, and our text-book of 
doctrine? And the propositions which are defended are 
(1) that as we accept it, as office-bearers, only for " system 
of doctrine," and it confessedly brings the system we pro- 
fess to adequate expression, it does not need revision for 
the first of these reasons ; and (2) that as its statements of 
the truths that enter into this system are exact, full, com- 
plete, moderate, catholic, inclusive, and devout, it does not 
need revision for the second reason. If I properly under- 
stand Dr. Yan Dyke, he does not take issue with the first 
of these propositions. He criticises my mode of stating it, 
indeed, as if it implied that advocates of revision desired 
change in the system of doctrine. This " for himself and 
as many as will adhere to him," he repudiates. The object 
of those for whom he speaks " is not to change the system of 
doctrine taught in the Confession, nor to repudiate or modify 
or dilute any one doctrine of that system." Surely, then, we 
may say that Dr. Yan Dyke agrees that no change in the 
system of doctrine which the Confession teaches, or in " any 
one doctrine of that system," is needed. And that is just my 



44 



ON THE REVISION OF 



first contention. His whole case, then, is apparently directed 
against my second contention, and is hung, in the present 
paper, on three selected instances, which he thinks " fully 
demonstrate the necessity and practicability of revision." 

These three points concern the statement of the doctrine 
of reprobation, the clause about " elect infants," and the 
alleged absence from the Confession of sufficient recogni- 
tion of the universal provision and free offer of salvation in 
Christ. I cannot deny that Dr. Van Dyke has chosen his 
points well. The issue made by them is distinct ; and it is 
probably on these three points that the decision of the gen- 
eral question will turn. But if this be true, I cannot but 
think that as the Church (to use an old rabbinical phrase) 
" sinks herself down in the book " during the coming 
months, she will, on this issue, feel constrained to vote for 
no revision. Certainly, speaking for myself, I do not 
desire revision at these points, and feel bound to affirm that 
the Confession stands in no need of revision in any one of 
them — that the opinion that it does rests on a misapprehen- 
sion of its teaching — and that the alterations that have been 
proposed would certainly mar it and leave it a less satis- 
factory document than it now is. I owe to myself some 
words in justification of my venturing to differ so mate- 
rially from so ripe a scholar and so thoughtful a theologian 
as Dr. Yan Dyke. 

I. 

THE DOCTRINE OF REPROBATION. 

The third chapter of the Confession, " Of God's Eternal 
Decree," as it was the occasion of the overture of the 
Presbytery of Nassau opening the present discussion, so it 
has borne, thus far, the brunt of objection to the Confes- 
sion. To me it appears, however, a most admirable chap- 
ter—the most admirably clear, orderly, careful, and raoder- 



THE CONFESSION OF FAlTH. 



45 



ate statement of the great mysteries of God's decree to be 
found in the whole body of the Keformed Confessions. 
How, then, shall we account for the offence which has been 
taken with it of late ? I trust I shall be excused for saying 
it frankly. It seems to me to have arisen from a very 
strange confusion, involving both the doctrine of reproba- 
tion on the one side and the purport of the Westminster 
Confession on the other. 

In order to explain what I mean, let me begin by 
reminding the reader that the Reformed doctrine has 
always distinguished (under various names) between what 
we may call pretention and condemnation, and has always 
taught that pretention is sovereign (as, indeed, it must be 
if election is sovereign), while condemnation, a consequent 
only of preterition, is for men's sins. The sentence which 
Dr. Yan Dyke quotes from Dr. A. A. Hodge is perfectly 
accurately expressed : " It is no part of the Reformed faith 
that God's .... treatment of the lost is to be referred to 
His sovereign will. He condemns men only ' for their sins, 
to the praise of His glorious justice.' " But it is a part of 
the Reformed faith that preterition is sovereign, as Dr. 
Whitaker, in the age before the Westminster Assembly, 
clearly tells us : " Of predestination and reprobation it is 
our part to speak advisedly. But that the only will of God 
is the cause of reprobation, being taken as it is contrary to 
predestination, not only St. Paul and St. Augustine, but 
the best and learnedest schoolmen, have largely and invinci- 
bly proved." I do not know where this necessary distinc- 
tion between the sovereignty of preterition and the 
grounding of the consequent condemnation on sin, is better 
put, in late writing, than in the late Dr. Boyce's (of the 
Louisville Baptist Seminary) " Abstract of Systematic The- 
ology," which I mention here chiefly to call attention to 
the fact that Dr. Boyce's treatment is precisely that, even 



46 



ON THE REVISION OF 



in its peculiarities, of the great Westminster divine, Dr. 
Thomas Goodwin. I prefer, however, to quote here 
another Westminster divine, who appears to me to be more 
representative of the thought of the Assembly — Dr. John 
Arrowsmith — whose statement will serve to illuminate for 
us not only the subject itself, but the treatment of it in the 
Westminster Confession, and thus to supply us with a start- 
ing-point for its study. 

In his " Chain of Principles," Arrowsmith explains : 
" Pretention, or negative reprobation, is an eternal decree 
of God, purposing within Himself to deny unto the non- 
elect that peculiar love of His wherewith election is accom- 
panied, as, also, that special grace which infallibly bringeth 

to glory This description carries in the face of it a 

clear reason why the thing described goeth under the name 
of negative reprobation, because it standeth mainly on the 
denial of these free favors which it pleaseth God to bestow 
on His elect." When speaking later of the " consequents 
of the forementioned denials," he comes to " 3, Condem- 
nation for sin," and says: "This last is that which, by 
divines, is usually styled positive reprobation, and is clearly 
distinguishable from the negative in that the one is an act 
of punitive justice respecting sin committed and continued 
in. But the other an absolute decree of God's most free 
and sovereign will, without respect to any disposition in the 
creature. I call them consequents, not effects; because, 
though negative reprobation be antecedent to them all, it is 
not the proper cause of them. This difference between the 
decrees Aquinas long since took notice of. 'Election,' 
saith he, ' is a proper cause both of that glory which the 
elect look for hereafter, and of that grace which they here 
enjoy. Whereas reprobation is not the cause of the pres- 
ent sins of the non-elect, though it be of God's forsaking 
them ; but their sin proceeds from the parties themselves 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



47 



so passed by and forsaken.'" A clearer or more exact 
statement of the common Reformed doctrine on this subject 
could scarcely be found. Although the matter is capable 
of very copious illustration from the Westminster divines, 
we may content our self with this typical statement. 
Enough has been already quoted to point out that the 
Westminster divines had in mind, as, indeed, they could 
not fail to have, the very obvious and necessary distinction 
between God's sovereign decree of pretention — " negative 
reprobation," as Arrowsmith calls it — which must be as free 
and sovereign as election itself, of which it is, indeed, but 
the negative statement; and his dealing with those thus 
passed by, which depends on their deserts. The fact that 
men are sinners does not affect the sovereignty of preten- 
tion ; it only affects the treatment they are left to by 
pretention. If, for instance, out of the holy angels God 
chose sovereignly a certain number for some high service, 
involving special gifts of grace to them to fit them for it, 
the " leaving " of the rest would be just as truly u preten- 
tion " as in the case of fallen men ; but the consequent 
treatment being but the " consequent," and not the " effect," 
of pretention, would be infinitely different in the two cases, 
seeing that it is the effect of the deserts, whatever they 
may be, in which those who are " passed by " are found to 
be left. Consequently, sin is not the cause of preterition ; 
election is the cause of preterition ; i. e., the choosing of 
some is the cause that " the rest " are left. Sin is the cause, 
however, of how the preterited ones are treated. And to 
guard this, the Westminster men were accustomed to use a 
phrase they borrowed from Wollevius, which affirmed that 
sin is not the causa reprohationis, but the causa reproba- 
bilitatis ; that is, sin is not the cause of reprobation (other- 
wise the elect, who also are sinners, would be reprobates), 
but it is the cause of men being in a reprooatible state. 



48 



ON THE EEVISION OF 



These are not theological subtleties ; they are broad, out- 
standing facts of God's dealing with men ; and it is 
failure to note them that is causing much (not always 
wholly intelligent) criticism of the Confession in these 
last days. 

Let us come back to the third chapter of the Confession 
now, and note its structure. It opens with what is the 
finest and most guarded and most beautiful statement of 
the doctrine of God's decrees in general that has ever been 
compressed into so small a space (Sections 1 and 2). Then, 
proceeding to the special decree dealing with His creatures' 
destiny, it first asserts the fact that this sovereign, particu- 
lar, and unchangeable decree extends also over this sphere 
of the destiny of the creature (Sections 3 and 4), and then 
proceeds to outline God's consequent dealing with the 
diverse classes (Sections 5-7), closing with a caution against 
careless handling of such great mysteries (Section 8). Were 
this the proper occasion for it, it would be a pleasure to 
expound this marvellously concise, full, and careful state- 
ment of an essential doctrine, in detail. Now, however, 
we are concerned only to emphasize the obvious fact that 
the famous Section 3 is nothing more than the clear state- 
ment of one fact falling under Section 1, here particularly 
restated in order to supply a starting-point for the full dis- 
cussion of God's special decree given in Sections 4-8. To 
accept the general doctrine of Section 1, and then be stum- 
bled by the specific fact asserted under it by Section 3, is 
simply to deny in specie what has just been asserted in 
genere. If " God from all eternity did, by the most wise 
and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably 
ordain whatsoever comes to pass " (III., i.), how can we be 
offended by the assertion that " by the decree of God, for 
the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are 
predestinated unto everlasting life and others foreordained 



THE CONFESSION OE FAITH. 



49 



to everlasting death " (III., iii.), unless we are prepared to 
deny that u it comes to pass " that some go to eternal life 
and some to eternal death?* Are we to be Calvinists 
only " in the vague," and on the moment that we descend 
into details, be ready not only to stumble at our Cal- 
vinistic faith, but also to desert elementary logic ? What 
need there is for amending this section we certainly fail 
to see. 

It is a matter of interest, indeed, but of less importance, 
to ask what would be the effect of adopting the amendment 
to it proposed by Dr. Yan Dyke, who desires that the 
words "for their sins " should be inserted into Section 3. 
" Will any opponent of revision," he asks, " maintain that 
the addition of these words would mar the integrity of our 
Confession % " I answer, unhesitatingly, yes ; the insertion 
of these words into Section 3 would be an intolerable con- 
fusing of the logical order and exactitude of statement of 
this now beautifully ordered and carefully phrased chapter. 
It would prematurely introduce the statement of the 
ground of God's actual dealings with one class into the 
statement of the fact that two classes are discriminated. It 
would confound the treatment of preterition (which is 
sovereign) with that of condemnation (which is based on 
sin). It would throw the whole chapter into such confusion 

* Compare the admirable discussion of the late Principal Cunning- 
ham {Historical Theology, II., pp. 422-430). " It is manifest," he says, 
" that if the Calvinistic doctrine upon this great general question be 
established" (i. e., of the Decrees, as in III., 1, 2), " this settles all the 
questions bearing upon the subjects of election and reprobation, or the 
purposings and actings of God with respect to the character and fate 
of men individually. If God has unchangeably foreordained whatso- 
ever comes to pass, and if, in point of fact, some men are saved and 
the rest perish, then it must be true that He has predestinated some men 
to everlasting life and has foreordained others to everlasting death " 
(pp. 424-7). 



50 



ON THE REVISION OF 



as to render Section 7 superfluous, while affording us but a 
sorry substitute for that richer section. In the effort to 
prevent careless readers from misapprehending a plain and 
admirably ordered document, it would compel all careful 
readers to be offended by a bad arrangement and an insuffi- 
cient theological discrimination. Speaking for myself, 
then, I do not hesitate to say that the present form of the 
third chapter suits me precisely, and that the proposed 
change would be unacceptable and confusing, and appears 
to me to rest only on an unwillingness to take the trouble 
to follow the Confession in the logical ordering of its 
matter. 

II. 

INFANT SALVATION. 

If the current misapprehensions of Chapter III. are re- 
markable, I think we may characterize the interpretation of 
Chapter X., Section 3, which finds a body of non-elect 
infants, dying in infancy, implied in its statement, as 
one of the most astonishing pieces of misinterpretation in 
literary history. It is so perfectly gratuitous as almost to 
reach the level of the sublime. And when Dr. Yan Dyke 
adduces " the ambiguous phrase ' elect infants dying in 
infancy,' " as sanctioning " the popular impression that 
we hold the abhorrent doctrine of the damnation of in- 
fants," and as, therefore, one of the three cases in which 
the necessity for revision is obvious, he renders it easy 
for us to reply that the phrase is not, properly speaking, 
" ambiguous," and that the Confession is certainly in no 
need of revision to guard it from a wholly unreasonable 
interpretation. 

The assertion that the clause in question necessarily im- 
plies, as its opposite, a body of non-elect infants dying in 
infancy, has been so often and so dogmatically reiterated 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



51 



of late years, however, that I shall need to ask the reader 
to go with me to the text of the Confession, before I can 
hope that he will credit my counter-assertion that such an 
implication is a total misunderstanding of it. Let us ob- 
serve, then, that we are now dealing with effectual calling, 
not with election. All questions of election have been set- 
tled seven chapters back ; and this logically arranged Con- 
fession — the careful strictness of the logical arrangement of 
which has been made a reproach to it — is not a document to 
rebroach that question at this late and inappropriate point. 
Let us observe, next, that in the apprehension of the fram- 
ers of the Confession effectual calling is the first step in the 
application of redemption to God's elect. To them, and 
them only, is given this grace. But how ? " By His 
word and Spirit" — and then a rich statement is made 
as to how this call works in and on them, so as that, 
though effectually drawn to Jesus, they come most freely 
and willingly. God's elect, then, are saved through the 
external ca*ll of the word and the internal call of the 
Spirit conjoined. But what if God's elect die before they 
are capable of receiving this external call of the word ? 
Are they then lost ? No, says Section 3 ; God's elect that 
die in infancy are regenerated and saved through the inter- 
nal work of the Spirit, without the intermediation of the 
word ; and so are all others of the elect who are incapable 
of receiving such an outward call. Now, observe : There 
is no such distinction in the minds of the framers of the 
Confession, at this point, as " elect infants dying in in- 
fancy," and "non-elect infants dying in infancy." The 
distinction in their minds is that between " elect infants 
that reach the adult state," who are saved by the " word 
and Spirit," and " elect infants dying in infancy " who are 
saved by the Spirit apart from the word. This is the an- 
tithesis that was in their minds when they wrote this phrase ; 



52 



ON THE REVISION OF 



and they expected the reader to understand, as he read the 
words " elect infants dying in infancy," that these were the 
opposites of those who, having reached adulthood, were 
saved by the intermediation of the word. In short, " elect 
infants dying in infancy " is equivalent to " such elect in- 
fants as die in infancy," and not at all to " such infants 
dying in infancy as are elect." This is absolutely nec- 
essary to the progress of the thought. And this being 
so, the phrase does not start the question as to whether 
there are non-elect infants dying in infancy at all. To 
raise that question here is perfectly gratuitous ; and as it 
was not in the minds of the writers as they wrote this 
phrase, no proof that the majority of the Westminster di- 
vines believed that there were, or might be, non-elect in- 
fants dying in infancy, has any bearing on the interpreta- 
tion of this passage. We deal with the Confession that 
they framed, and with what they teach in it — not with 
what outside of it they are known to have believed. What 
they would have said had they felt called upon to speak of the 
question whether there be non-elect infants dying in infancy, 
we may indeed learn from their private writings. But we are 
not concerned with what they teach elsewhere on subjects not 
here under discussion ; but only with what they teach here. 
And what they teach here is that all of God's elect that 
reach adult age are called by the " word and Spirit," but 
such elect infants as die in infancy, and all others of the 
elect who are incapable of the outward call, are saved, apart 
from the outward call, by the Spirit's regeneration. How 
many there are — whether all or some of such as die in in- 
fancy — is a question wholly out of mind. The antithesis is 
that unless these infants die in infancy, or these others are 
really incapable of receiving the outward call, they cannot 
be saved without a knowledge of the gospel — and that the 
fourth section goes on to assert. To raise any other antith- 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



53 



esis here is to raise a false antithesis, which was not in 
the minds of the writers ; and to make any inferences 
from this false antithesis is to read something of onr own 
into the text. If we choose to raise such questions of 
our own, let us answer them ; the Confession has not 
raised them, and does not answer them by statement or 
implication. 

This interpretation of the bare text is powerfully sup- 
ported by the history of the framing of this phrase in 
the Assembly. The chapter on effectual calling in the 
first form lacked Section 3, and therefore it was ordered 
(" Minutes," p. 134) " that something be expressed in fit 
place concerning infant^ regeneration in their infancy P 
Observe, this is the point in the minds of the Assembly — 
the regeneration of infants in their infancy. What they 
wished to do was to show that Sections 1 and 2 did not ex- 
clude those who die in infancy from salvation, by the asser- 
tion that the effectual call came through the word. It was 
the possibility and actuality of regeneration in infancy that 
they wished to assert, and this, and this only, they do assert, — 
without implying anything at all as to how many of infants 
dying in infancy are so regenerated, which they would have 
adjudged a wholly inappropriate subject to broach at this 
place. We read in the " Minutes " of debates about this sec- 
tion, but absolutely nothing of the debate turning on anything 
else than the memorandum quoted above suggests. The 
phrase that occurs once, " Proceed in debate about elect of in- 
fants " (p. 162), furnishes no ground whatever for an opposite 
inference. In the complete uncertainty as to what is meant by 
the phrase, " elect of infants," or indeed whether it represents 
anything more than one of the numerous verbal blunders 
of the not over-careful scribe, it only tells us that Section 3 
was carefully considered before it was finally accepted. 
All we know is that it cannot mean anything inconsistent 



54 



ON THE REVISION OF 



J 



with both the memorandum which opened the debate and 
the formulated section which closed it. Dr. Van Dyke has 
somewhere in his papers in the Evangelist said (if my mem- 
ory serves me), that he is aware that this Section 3 was ar- 
rived at by a compromise. If he will be so good as to point 
out the evidence for this, he will confer a favor on schol- 
ars. I have searched the " Minutes " in vain for any signs 
of such a compromise. To show that Westminster divines 
differed as to whether all or only some of those who die in 
infancy are saved, is nothing to the purpose. There is no 
evidence that they had this matter in mind when this sec- 
tion was being debated. The only apposite thing would 
be to show that they differed as to whether infants that 
die in infancy are capable of regenerating grace. We 
know that their intention was to assert that death in in- 
fancy did not snatch the soul from the Saviour ; we know 
this is what they did assert. TTe have no right to infer 
that this assertion was arrived at by any compromise, or 
that any debates were held on any other subject in this 
connection. 

TThat has been said surely vindicates the Confession from 
the charge that revision is necessary at this point in order 
to prevent its seeming to teach that there are non-elect in- 
fants dying in infancy. Are the amendments offered in 
themselves acceptable ? A thousand times no, I should say. 
First, to insert a statement that all those that die in in- 
fancy are elect, here, would be out of place and order. This 
is not the place to treat of who are elect and who not, but 
of how God saves the elect. Secondly, to insert such a 
statement anywhere would be an unnecessary burdening of 
the Confession with an explicit statement of what most 
Presbyterians believe, indeed, but not all feel justified in 
asserting to be revealed truth. For myself, I believe with 
all my heart that all dying in infancy are saved, and I be- 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



55 



lieve that I can prove it from Scripture. But I think it 
far better to leave the Confession, asserting, as it does as- 
sert, that God saves all the elect, whether reaching adult 
age or dying in infancy, rather than to force into it a dog- 
matic definition of a doctrine which many among us still 
believe rests on a pious hope rather than on clear Scripture. 
To do this, as Dr. De Witt has unanswerably shown, 
is to move in the direction of narrowing our confessional 
basis, without necessity and without gain. The Confession 
already provides firm ground for all who believe that all 
those that die in infancy are elect, and it does this without 
dogmatism and without sacrificing its moderation and calm 
guardedness of statement. Why sacrifice this ? ~No one 
can doubt that what the Confession asserts is exactly true : 
that " elect infants dying in infancy are regenerated and 
saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when and 
where and how He pleaseth." Who denies that? And 
why should it be altered to a more doubtful form to save 
men from the possibility of misinterpreting it inconsist- 
ently with both the context and its own grammatical form ? 

III. 

god's love to man. 

In the preceding paper (pp. 25 sq. above) I have already 
said a few words regarding the general subject which lies 
at the base of the third test case which Dr. Van Dyke 
adduces to prove a necessity for revising the Confession — 
the Confession's treatment of the love of God to man. 
Here the following few remarks, additional to what I have 
there said, may suffice. Dr. Van Dyke complains that 
"there is not, in all our Confession, one declaration which 
clearly comprehends or alludes to the teaching of the Scrip- 
ture " on the sufficient provision and free proclamation of 



56 



ON THE REVISION OF 



salvation for all men, and their accountability for rejecting 
it. I do not understand Dr. Yan Dyke to complain that 
all this is nowhere gathered up in a single statement, nor 
can he intend to complain that the Confession does teach 
(as it certainly does) the doctrine of " the limited " (or bet- 
ter, " the definite ") atonement. I understand him to mean 
that the Confession taken at large nowhere recognizes ade- 
quately the freedom of the great Gospel offer, and man's 
consequent responsibility for rejecting it. But certainly 
this is somewhat rashly charged. It can hardly be said 
that the Confession nowhere teaches that " the eternal de- 
cree of God hinders no one from accepting the Gospel," 
when the Confession explicitly teaches that God is not 
the author of sin (would it not be a sin to refuse the Gos- 
pel ?), and that by the decree no " violence is offered to the 
will of the creature" (III., i.), nor is his liberty taken 
away (III., i.), and when it teaches that God freely offers 
the Gospel to all, as we shall immediately see. For to 
affirm that the Confession does not teach that the offer to 
all men is free, and that their acceptance of it would be 
saving, is to forget some of its most emphatic passages. 
The Confession vindicates the duty of translating the Bible 
" into the vulgar language of every nation," on the ground 
that thereby, " the word of God dwelling in all plentifully, 
they may worship him in an acceptable manner, and, 
through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, may have 
hope " (I., viii.). Here is clearly asserted the duty of the 
free proclamation, and the value of the truth as proclaimed 
to all — that all may through it be brought to "hope." 
Again (VII., vi.) it is declared that the ordinances of the 
New Covenant differ from those of the Old, in that the 
Gospel is held forth in them " in more fullness, evidence, 
and spiritual efficacy to all nations" — certainly a broad 
enough basis for any preaching. But the Confession goes 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



57 



further than this, declaring with the greatest explicitness 
(VIL, iii.) that the Lord has "freely offered unto sinners 
life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith 
in Him that they may be saved." It may be asserted, 
without fear of successful contradiction, that this Section 3 
of the seventh chapter actually contains all that Dr. Yan 
Dyke asks, L e. y a full recognition of the universal, suffi- 
cient provision and the free offer of salvation to all, along- 
side of the statement of its special designation for the elect, 
and I do not see what need there is for a repetition of 
it elsewhere. Nay, it may even be maintained that we 
already have in the third chapter itself all the recognition 
of this freedom of proclamation which is appropriate in 
that place, it being not only declared in the opening of it 
that God's decree does not supersede man's liberty or 
responsibility, but also commended at the end that the doc- 
trine of predestination be not so preached as to deter man 
from seeking salvation, but only so as to encourage the 
seekers with the assurance that though it be they who are 
working out their own salvation with fear and trembling, 
yet it is God who is working in them both the willing and 
the doing according to His own good pleasure. The Con- 
fession requires that predestination be so preached "that 
men attending the will of God revealed in his word [there 
is the free offer], and yielding obedience thereunto [there 
is the recognition of personal responsibility], may, from the 
certainty of their effectual vocation [there is the recogni- 
tion of God's hand in what is experienced only as their 
own work], be assured of their eternal election [there is 
the encouragement to further effort]." No wonder the 
splendid sentence follows : " So shall this doctrine afford 
matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God, and 
of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation to all 
that sincerely obey the Gospel." The order here is, (1) 



58 



ON THE REVISION OF 



hear the Gospel, (2) obey it, (3) be encouraged and comforted 
because God's hand is certainly in it ; and that is (1) free 
proclamation of the word ; (2) responsibility in accepting it ; 
(3) praise to and confidence in God for His blessed work 
in us. 

I cannot, then, think the Confession in need of the 
third improvement which Dr. Van Dyke proposes. It 
has it already spread over its pages, and, especially in VI. 
in., explicitly stated. If the attempt is made to set aside 
the Confession's clear declaration of God's love for men 
and His provision of a salvation adequate to all their needs, 
as insufficiently explicit, I cannot consider this a very rea- 
sonable procedure. No one doubts that the New Testa- 
ment is written all over with the love of God to man ; 
and yet it is the fact that there is but a single unique pas- 
sage in it which brings the terms " God loved " and " the 
world " into immediate conjunction. This great doctrine 
can be not only " implied " but " declared " apart from this 
exact phraseology, and it is adequately " declared " both in 
the Scriptures and the Confession, apart from it. It is 
scarcely fair to apply different modes of estimation to the 
two documents. If the New Testament declares that " God 
is love," the Confession equally asserts, at its appropriate 
place, that He is " most loving, gracious, merciful, long- 
suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniq- 
uity, transgression, and sin" (II., i.). If the New Testa- 
ment declares that " God so loved the world that He gave 
His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him 
should not perish but have everlasting life," the Confes- 
sion traces the working of this mighty love from plan to 
act and from act to act, until it brings its own into the fru- 
ition of glory : and speaks continually of God's goodness 
which is over all, of His nature which is such that He can 
be described only as He who " is good and doeth good unto 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



59 



all" (XXI., i.), of His condescension to covenant with man 
as man for his salvation (YIL, i.), and of his unwearying 
determination that His gracious offers, freely made to all, 
should not wholly fail (VII., in.). As a matter of mere 
fact the whole essence and drift of the entire Confession is 
praise of the unspeakable and inexplicable love of God to 
man. As such it opens with God's compassion in giving 
man a saving revelation of Himself (I., i.) ; places the 
God of Love, so grandly described, at the root of all its 
doctrinal statements (II., i.) ; bases His whole saving pur- 
pose on His " mere grace and love " (HI., v.), and creation 
itself on His goodness (IV., i.) — a goodness which fails not 
in any dealing with His creatures (VII., i.), even in His 
dealings with sin (V., iv.). The Confession, in a word, 
accurately fulfills the demand which Dr. Schaff makes, for 
a Confession "that is inspired and controlled, not by the 
idea of divine justice, which is a consuming fire, but by 
the idea of divine love, which is life and peace " — "a 
Confession which is as broad and deep as God's love, and 
as strict and severe as God's justice." This, this Confes- 
sion is. And no Confession could be this which did not 
make, as this Confession does, its formative idea, not God's 
general and indiscriminate love for His creatures, but His 
ineffable and peculiar love for His people — His saving love, 
as distinguished from His mere benevolence. God's elect- 
ing love is the highest manifestation of His love for man, 
not (as some seem to think) a limitation of it : it does not 
make His general love without effect — it gives it effect. 
That the Confession lays most stress on it, is to preserve 
the right proportion of faith and to glorify God's general 
love, not to derogate from it. Doing so it makes every- 
thing of love, bases its whole fabric on it, and all the more 
glorifies it that it does not forget God's justice. After the 
Bible, it is the most perfect charter of the divine love cur- 



60 



ON TIIE REVISION OF 



rent among men. Nor would it be bettered in this regard 
by making it speak twice as often about love and half as 
often of the black facts of human nature and destiny which 
furnish the occasion of the exhibition of God's love to 
men, and apart from a full realization of which, we can 
have no appreciation of the depths of Plis love. 

In closing, then, I reiterate that I cannot but feel that 
the Confession, if it is to be judged by these three well- 
chosen examples, must be adjudged to be in no need of 
revision. And I cannot help noting that all the objec- 
tions seem to grow out of misapprehension of what the 
Confession does teach and how it teaches it. Why not so 
revise it as to make such misapprehension impossible, then ? 
I can only reply, that no document can be framed which is 
incapable of being misapprehended by the careless reader, 
and I am bound to say that, in my judgment, the Confes- 
sion cannot be misapprehended in these points when care- 
fully read. Most of the presently urged objections have 
arisen primarily in the minds of enemies of Calvinism, 
whose misapprehension (or misrepresentation) was a fore- 
gone conclusion, and have, by dint of much proclamation, 
been conveyed from them to us — for the best of us are not 
proof against outside influences. We have tested assertions 
of this kind, not as we should, by grounded and consecu- 
tive study of the whole document, but by momentary ad- 
version to the passages specially attacked, with our minds 
full of the attack. And so we have seen the sense in them 
which we were sent to look for. The remedy is not to 
revise the Confession in the hope of rendering misappre- 
hension of it impossible, but to revise our study of the Con- 
fession, in the hope of correctly apprehending it. What 
the Confession needs is not revision, but study. And the 
present agitation will have been a boon to the Church, 
however it eventuates, if it brings the Confession more into 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



61 



the minds of our membership ; if it applies its forms of 
sound words to our conceptions of doctrine, and lays its 
devout spirit alongside of our aspirations heavenward. For 
the Confession is not only the soundest, sweetest, most ex- 
act and moderate statement of doctrine ever framed. It is 
a revival document. It was framed by revivalists, in a re- 
vival age. And it bears a revival spirit in its bosom. He 
who feeds on it will find, not only his thought quickened 
and his intellectual apprehension clarified, but his heart 
warmed and his spirit turned toward God. 



62 



ON THE REVISION OF 



IV. 

THE PKESBYTEKIAN WORLD AND THE WEST- 
MINSTER CONFESSION* 

The last few years have been marked, throughout the 
Presbyterian world, by a widespread agitation regarding 
the relation of the churches to the Westminster Standards, 
which has seemed to culminate during the ecclesiastical 
year that has just closed. Its formal beginnings f may be 
assigned to the movement which issued in the adoption by 
the Scottish United Presbyterian Church, in 1879, of a 
Declaratory Act, giving forth an authorized explanation in 
regard to certain subjects in the Standards, respecting which 
it was found desirable to set forth more fully and clearly 
the view which the Synod took of the teaching of Holy 
Scripture. The subjects treated in this document are espe- 
cially the love of God for all mankind, and His provision, 
by the gift of His Son, of a salvation sufficient for all, 
adapted to all, and offered freely to all ; man's responsibil- 
ity ; infant salvation and the salvability of the heathen ; 
Church and State ; and such minor matters as creation in 
six days, and the like. This was followed in 1882 by the 
passage of a somewhat similar act by the Presbyterian 
Church of Victoria. Since 1883 the Presbyterian Church 
of England, while " unabatedly adhering to the doctrine 
contained in the Westminster Confession/' has been busily 

* Printed in The Presbyterian Review, October, 1889, vol. x., p. 646. 

f Compare an interesting account of the movement in Scotland, from 
the competent hand of A. Taylor Innis, Esq., in The Andover Review 
for July, 1889, pp. 1-15. 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



63 



engaged in considering its relations to that document ; in 
the course of which consideration it has framed for itself a 
brief compendium of fundamental doctrines, designed, 
" not of necessity to supersede the Westminster Confession 
as the standard of orthodox teaching from the pulpit, yet 
for sundry other practical uses," " as, for example, the clear 
presentation to the public of the Church's exact doctrinal 
teaching, or for the indoctrination of catechumens, or even 
for an intelligent profession of their faith by ruling elders 
and deacons." * Accordingly, it was proposed to the Synod 
at its last meeting to adopt these new "Articles of Faith," 
" as a sufficiently full statement of this Church's belief on 
fundamental doctrines to serve for a testimony to those 
beyond her communion, and for a summary of her creed to 
be recited upon special occasions of public worship " — in a 
word, to take some such place as its Summary of Princi- 
ples does in the United Presbyterian Church. At the other 
end of the world, again, the Synod of the Presbyterian 
Church of Otago and Southland in Southern New Zealand 
appointed a committee at their meeting in the autumn of 
1888, to consider the whole subject of the relation of the 
Church to its subordinate Standards, and report to the 
Synod of 1889.f In Scotland, the Established Church has 



* Dr. J. Oswald Dykes, in The Catholic Presbyterian, ix. 469, June, 
1883. 

f A somewhat similar overture to that sent up to the Synod of Otago 
and Southland by the Presbytery of Dunedin, on the basis of which 
the action mentioned above was taken, was sent up by the Presbytery 
of Auckland to the last General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church 
of New Zealand, but was set aside on the ground that the modified 
formula of subscription in use in that church secures all that is neces- 
sary. That formula reserves liberty of opinion "on the teaching of 
the said Confession in regard to the duty of the civil magistrate, mar- 
riage with a deceased wife's sister, and the forms of expression in which 
the several doctrines are stated." 



ON THE REVISION OF 



during the last year voted to revert for ministerial subscrip- 
tion, from the formula framed in 1711, which required 
acceptance of the whole doctrine of the Confession as 
truths of God, to the simpler one which has hitherto been 
used by the elders, and which rests on the act of the As- 
sembly of 1694 ; while the elders hereafter are only to ex- 
press their approbation of the Confession. The Free 
Church, after a year's debate, has appointed a large com- 
mittee to report to the next Assembly what relief is needed. 
In America, two overtures looking toward revision were 
presented to the Canadian Presbytery of Toronto, but voted 
down ; while the General Assembly of our own Church 
has overtured its Presbyteries with a view to discovering 
whether there is any widespread or important call for re- 
vision among us. 

Such a chronicle as this is apt to leave upon the mind an 
impression of a deep and almost universal disaffection under 
the pressure of the Westminster Standards. It certainly 
does prove that there are men everywhere who are dissatis- 
fied either with the Standards themselves or with the rela- 
tion they find themselves occupying to them. But we must 
not imagine that the causes which produce this restlessness 
are everywhere the same, or that all are agreed as to what 
is needed for relief or that anything is needed. Even among 
those who really object to the Standards themselves, differ- 
ent men object to widely different things, so that if the at- 
tempt were made to exclude everything concerning which 
any individual cherished doubt, " it would be a poor 
church," in the paradoxical language of Dr. Macgregor,* 
" which has not in its adult membership a sufficient amount 

* Freedom in the Truth (Dunedin : 12mo, pp. 72), being Dr. Mac- 
gregor's speech in the Synod of Otago and Southland in opposition to 
the overture of the Presbytery of Dunedin, on which the Synod's ac- 
tion was based. 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



65 



of immaturity to cast out by this process the whole round 
of Christian doctrine." And it is more important still to 
remember that the circumstances of the several churches 
are widely different, and the relations they bear to the 
Standards very diverse, so that the causes of restlessness 
that are operative in one are wholly absent in another. 
There is obviously, for example, a very great difference be- 
tween objecting to be bound to an extended doctrinal treat- 
ise in all its propositions and rejecting the whole Calvinistic 
theology. If we, however, range the world over and gather 
together indiscriminately all the objections that have been 
made to the Westminster Confession during these last 
years, we are in danger of confusing even such opposite 
points of view as these. In the midst of such an agitation 
for change as has arisen in the American Church during 
the last months, therefore, it seems necessary for us to take 
a general glance over the Presbyterian world with a view 
to tracing the causes which are working in one place or an- 
other, to the production of this restlessness. In so doing 
we can scarcely fail to learn more accurately to estimate at 
its true value much that might otherwise be misunderstood, 
and perhaps also we may learn to value more highly our 
own inheritance in our creed and in our relation to it as fixed 
in the formula by which we accept it in ordination. 

I. 

OVEKSTRICTNESS OF FOKMULA OF ACCEPTANCE. 

Among the causes of the present restlessness with refer- 
ence to the Westminster Standards, the first place is un- 
doubtedly due to the overstrictness prevailing in some 
churches, in the formula of subscription which is required 
of office-bearers. And it is worthy of notice that where 
the formula seems most overstrict, dissatisfaction seems to 
be most widespread, most pronounced, and most difficult to 



66 



ON THE REVISION OF 



satisfy. The Established and Free Churches of Scotland, 
for example, have hitherto required of their ministry " sin- 
cerely to own and believe the whole doctrine contained in 
the Confession of Faith .... to be the truths of God." 
Dr. Candlish has, indeed, argued that in its historical sense, 
even this formula asks only acceptance of the Confession 
as a whole ; * but, as it seems to us, unsuccessfully, and 
certainly without effect on the convictions of the churches. 
We do not wonder, therefore, that the ministry of these 
churches are earnest in seeking relief. It may savor of ex- 
aggeration to say with Mr. Taylor Innis (presuming that he 
means single propositions), that " there is no honest or sane 
man who will pretend that any proposition in religious 
truth constructed by others, exactly expresses his own view 
of that religious truth f but this is surely apt to be true 
of an extended confession, and we must certainly agree 
with the words which he adds in a note : " Properly speak- 
ing, the Confession is not the confession of faith of any one 
who signs it, but of all. None of them exactly agree with 
it, but none of them contradict it." In a word, a public 
confession, by virtue of the very fact that it is public, can- 
not be, and ought not to be pretended to be, just the ex- 
pression of his faith which each one who accepts it as repre- 
senting his faith would have framed had he only himself to 
consider. The most we can expect, and the most we have 
right to ask, is that each one may be able to recognize it as 
an expression of the system of truth which he believes. 
To go beyond this and seek to make each of a large body 
of signers accept the Confession in all its propositions as 
the profession of his personal belief, cannot fail to result in 
serious evils — not least among which are the twin evils 

* The Relation of the Presbyterian Churches to the Confession of Faith. 
Glasgow, 1886, p. 6. 
f The Laic of Creeds in Scotland, p. 479. 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



67 



that, on the one hand, too strict subscription overreaches 
itself and becomes little better than no subscription ; and, 
on the other, that it begets a spirit of petty, carping criti- 
cism which raises objection to forms of statement that in 
other circumstances would not appear objectionable. 

Where the formula of acceptance is such that no one 
signs without some mental reservation, some soon learn to 
sign without reference to mental reservation ; and gross 
heterodoxy becomes gradually safe, because there is no one 
so wholly without sin that his conscience permits him to 
cast the first stone. That such a state of things has not 
been unknown, the history of Scottish Moderatism may 
teach us. That in the estimation of some, some of its feat- 
ures are not wholly unknown now, there are not lacking 
phenomena which may indicate. It is even occasionally 
openly asserted. Thus Dr. Watt is reported as declaring 
on the floor of the Established Presbytery of Glasgow that 
" he took it, that no man signed the formula without men- 
tal reservation more or less";* and Professor Storey is 
reported f as pleading in one of his opening addresses, 
that " some such terms of official subscription of the Con- 
fession should be adopted as shall openly sanction the lib- 
erty which is tacitly exercised in qualifying or modifying 
some of its propositions." Now, such a state of affairs is a 
great evil ; and the dangers attending it have never been 
better pointed out than by Dr. Charles Hodge, who writes : 
" To adopt every proposition contained in the Westminster 
Confession and Catechisms is more than the vast majority 
of our ministers either do or can do. To make them pro- 
fess to do it is a great sin. It hurts their consciences. It 
fosters a spirit of evasion and subterfuge. It forces them 



* The Glasgow Herald, March 28, 1889. 
f Ibid., November 13, 1888. 



68 



ON THE REVISION OF 



to take creeds in a 6 non-natural sense.' It at once vitiates 
and degrades. There are few greater evils connected with 
establishments than the overwhelming temptations which 
they offer to make men profess what they do not believe. 
Under such strict requirements, men make light of profes- 
sions, and are ready to adopt any creed which opens the 
door to wealth or office. The overstrict the world over are 
the least faithful." * 

Not less surely, however, does overstrictness of formula 
wound tender consciences and produce a restlessness as over 
against the creed itself to all the propositions of which they 
are obliged to assent as the profession of their faith, even 
when they would not find these propositions objectionable 
when considered only as one statement of the faith they 
profess. Tender consciences must revolt from a confession 
to which they are too closely bound, if they do not find 
themselves in absolute agreement with its every word ; and 
revolt once begun battens on what it feeds on, until a great 
war breaks out against the Confession with which, never- 
theless, most of the combatants are in substantial agreement. 
Thus overstrictness in the formula is the real account often 
to be given of what emerges as objection against the creed, 
rather than against the formula. Relief is to be sought in 
such a relaxation of the formula as will give all the liberty 
to individuals which is consistent with the Church's witness 
to the truth. What is needed seems to us admirably ex- 
pressed by Dr. Marshall Lang in a speech in the Established 
Presbytery of Glasgow, advocating the change of formula 
which has since been accomplished in that Church : " The 
point they desired to emphasize was this," he is reported as 
saying, f " that they did not bind men to the mere letter. 
They did not insist that a man should accept all the propo- 



* Church Polity, p. 332. f The Glasgow Herald, March 28, 1889. 



THE CONFESSION" OF FAITH. 



69 



sitions and all the phraseology of the Confession. What 
they asked was, that a man should honestly and truly sub- 
scribe to the system of truth that was presented in the Con- 
fession of Faith, and not merely to the words of the letter 
in which it was presented. He thought a substantial relief 
was given to persons of scrupulous conscience." So far as 
the present agitation in the Scotch churches arises from this 
cause and tends to this result, it is an effort to attain a situ- 
ation as over against the Standards which the American 
churches have always enjoyed, and it must have the hearty 
sympathy of every American Presbyterian. 

In this advocacy of a liberal formula, however, we are 
not to be understood as if we could at all accord with those 
who would so relax the formula as to make the Confession 
of Faith little more than a venerable relic of a past age, still 
honored as such by the Church. Such a change as that 
made in 1816 by the Church of Holland by which minis- 
ters were no longer pledged to the Standards, because 
(quia), but only in so far as (quatenus) they accord with 
the Word, is justly pointed to by Mr. McEwan * as fatal. 
That there are, nevertheless, some in the Scotch churches 
who might desire it, seems to be hinted by some words of 
Mr. Taylor Innis.f Unfortunately there are some even 
who act as if this were all that the present very strict for- 
mula bound them to, as was evinced, for example, by the 
amazing plea put in by Mr. James Stuart, author of that 
very remarkable book, The Principles of Christianity, 
when arraigned before the Presbytery of Edinburgh.^: 



* The New Movement in the Free Church (Edinburgh, 1889), pp. 10 
and 11. 

f The Theological Review, November, 1888. 

X As reported in The Scotsman for January 31, 1889. Mr. Stuart is 
reported as saying : " He could not see how the subordinate standard 
and the ultimate standard were on an equality. He regarded the sub- 



70 



ON THE REVISION OF 



Nevertheless, it is surely not nearly so difficult as Principal 
David Brown expresses himself as thinking, to frame a 
formula which will " let in all right men and keep out all 
wrong." The American churches have such a formula. 
Of course it lies in the courts of the Church to decide what 
is and what is not " of the system," and Church courts are 
not infallible, nor always faithful. But Church courts can 
afford, and do venture, to hold men strictly to the terms of 
a liberal formula, when they could not to an illiberal one. 
Overstrictness demands and begets laxity in performance ; 
while a truly liberal but conservative formula binds all es- 
sentially sound men together against laxity. In pleading 
for a liberal formula, therefore, we wish it distinctly un- 
derstood that we do not plead either for a lax formula, or 
much less for a lax administration of any formula — within 
which an essential dishonesty seems to lurk. The Ameri- 
can formula appears to us the ideal one, and as nothing 
more lax than it would be acceptable or safe, certainly a 
lax administration of it would be unendurable, and, as we 
have said, essentially dishonest. 



ordinate one as valid only in so far as it was based on the ultimate one." 
Thus, he confused his duty to himself and his God, with his duty to 
the Church as a society ; and so refused to withdraw from a Churcli 
whose formularies he no longer accepted. For reply, we should only 
need point Mr. Stuart to the brochure of his brother "liberal," Mr. 
Macintosh's The Obsoleteness of the Confession of Faith, p. 63, one of 
the few bright spots of truth in this remarkable pamphlet. We hardly - 
know what to think of such words as are ascribed to Rev. T. P. Kil- 
patrick, of Aberdeen, on the floor of the Free Church Assembly {The 
Scotsman for May 31, 1889), who is reported as saying that he spoke 
for himself and for many of the younger ministers of the Church, and 
that "they were adherents of no system of theology that was at pres- 
ent in existence." Yet they had signed the Confession of Faith by the 
strictest of formulas, 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



71 



II. 

SCHOLASTIC FORM OF THE CONFESSION. 

Overstrictness of formula is not, however, the cause of 
all the restlessness, as over against the "Westminster Stand- 
ards, which is, at present, exhibiting itself in the churches, 
nor even of all that arises apart from doctrinal disharmony 
with the Westminster Confession. It has grown quite com- 
mon to hear objections directed wholly against its form ; it 
is alleged that it is too long, too full, too detailed, too ana- 
lytical, too scholastic, too logical, or too polemic to serve 
properly as a creed for the profession of a Church's faith. 
In one form or another, and on one ground or another (by 
no means always on the same ground), tH!s objection has 
found much expression during the past year. Thus the 
Presbytery of Brechin even overtured the Free Church 
Assembly to revert to the Keformation Confession of the 
Scotch Church; and it has not been uncommon to hear 
contrasts drawn between it as a document which is vital, 
religious, and biblical, and the Westminster Confession as 
scholastic, theological, logical — between the one as the nat- 
ural product of a period of living faith and earnest preach- 
ing, and the other as the equally natural product of a pe- 
riod of controversy. Perhaps this phase of opinion has 
never been better expressed than by Mr. J. Murray Gar- 
den in seconding Dr. Brown's overture in the Free Church 
Presbytery of Aberdeen. " If the Westminster Confession 
is a perfect building," he is reported as saying,* " perfect 
in all its parts, and true in all its proportions, I should 
rather prefer to liken the Confession of John Knox to a 
tree, living and springing and adapted to the life of the 
Church. If the Westminster Confession is clear, it is cold ; 

* The (Aberdeen) Daily Free Press for February 6, 1889. 



72 



ON" THE REVISION OF 



if it is purifying to the intellect, it is very often chilling to 
the faith ; whereas such a document as I have referred to is 
bright and warming like a living fire, and you cannot won- 
der, for it was born at a time when men were instinct with 
life." There is not apparent here any objection to the doc- ' 
trines of the Confession, but only to its forms of statement. 
It is no doubt a very pleasing picture that Mr. Garden 
paints for us of the model Confession ; but wherein does 
the Westminster Confession not fully satisfy it ? We very 
much fear that in most cases when this general position 
finds expression, it is founded on an erroneous idea of what 
a Confession like ours is and the purposes which it is in- 
tended to serve, if not also upon an insufficient appreciation 
of the true character of the Westminster Confession itself. 
" Fancy attempting to recite the Westminster Confession as 
part of the worship of God," cries Mr. Eobert Macintosh,* 
and many more appear to share his idea that a creed must 
be in its essence " an immediate utterance of faith," couched 
in "religious form," and intended as a vehicle through 
which the people at large periodically bring their belief to 
verbal expression. It could be wished that so good a treat- 
ise as Dunlop's A Full Account of the Several Ends and 
Uses of Confessions of Faith, should not be permitted to 
grow obsolescent until in some way men attained a some- 
what rounded view of the functions of Confessions. It 
ought to require very little consideration, however, to dis- 
cover that they are not intended to take the place either of 
the sermon, applying the truth of God to the heart, or of 
the professional element of prayer, in which we acknowl- 
edge God's truth to Him. Their three chief ends are 
rather to serve as testimonies, tests, and text-books. As 



* The Obsoleteness of the Confession of Faith (Glasgow, 1888), 
p. 28. 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



73 



testimonies, they (we revert to old Dunlop's words) " give 
a fair and authentic account of the doctrine maintained," 
and clear misapprehensions and calumnies; they enable 
Christian societies " in the most solemn manner to make 
profession of the true religion and glory in it before the 
world" — a duty especially binding when the truth is ridi- 
culed and despised in the world, or is being deserted by the 
churches ; and they bring together and bind into one com- 
munion those who stand for the truth, contributing to their 
mutual comfort and edification. As tests, they are estab- 
lished as Standards of sound teaching and bulwarks against 
error ; and especially as protections to the people against 
ecclesiastical tyranny and the vagaries of individual teach- 
ers, enabling them to demand and secure that they be fed 
with the sincere milk of the Word. As text-books, they 
provide the people with short and useful summaries of the 
true doctrines of religion, and so maintain purity of faith 
among them. For all and for each of these purposes, they 
ought to be full, detailed, theological, clear, logical, dis- 
criminating — not without the breath of vital piety blowing 
through them ; but not merely a summary of those truths 
necessary for salvation, but rather of the whole circle of the 
fundamental truths of God. It is because, strong in mod- 
eration and true catholicity, the Westminster Standards are 
creeds of this sort, that they were " cried up," as Baillie 
tells us, at the time, as the best yet extant, even by the 
"opposites" of the divines who framed them, and have 
continued to win the praise of their candid-minded " oppo- 
sites " ever since. The late Dr. Curry, for example, of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, bore testimony that the West- 
minster Confession is " the ablest, clearest, and most com- 
prehensive system of Christian doctrine ever framed," " a 
comprehensive embodiment of nearly all the precious 
truths of the gospel." It is " its intrinsic worth alone," 



74 



01H THE KEVISION OF 



as Dr. Schaff reminds us,* that " can explain the fact that 
it has supplanted the older Standards of John Knox and 
John Craig in the land of their birth, and has been adopted 
by three distinct denominations." Even its very complete- 
ness and length is one of its excellences ; how otherwise 
shall we bear testimony to the whole truth of God ? Mr. 
Taylor Innis, certainly no prejudiced witness in such a mat- 
ter, truly saysif "In the history of Scotland, and in the 
Reformed Churches generally, it does not appear that the 
men who sought for the minimum of truth to confess, were 
the men who had the most of the Divine spirit of truth. 
The greatest men and the best men (with some exceptions, 
like Baxter) seem hitherto to have been in favor of full 
creeds. Churchmen of capacity and earnestness — the men 
in whose heart the question, How is the King's Govern- 
ment to be carried on? continuously burned — have felt 
their practical need of creeds for keeping the Church to- 
gether, and have argued that they are essential, if not to 
the being (esse), at least to the well-being of the Church. 
And, on the other hand, the men of tenderness of con- 
science and pure heart toward God and men, have leaned 
not only to the Confession of the permanently central 
truths, but to the eager and solemn Confession of whatever 
truth the time and its trial called for — to its Confession not 
only individually, but by the unanimous and accordant voice 
of the witnessing Church of Christ." 

As for those who find the Westminster Confession a 
harsh or extreme document, or a cold and un devout one — 
or who speak of it as the product of controversialists rather 

* Creeds of Christendom, vol. i., p. 788. "For its sake," says Mr. 
Taylor Innis, " Scotland, long before the revolution of 1688, was willing 
to forget its own national Confession— that laid by John Knox on the 
table of the Parliament, 1560." (The Andover Review, July, 1889, p. I.) 

f The Law of Creeds in Scotland, p. 480. 



THE CONCESSION OF FAITH, 



75 



than of godly preachers of the Word — we simply cannot 
understand them. It marks the extreme of Calvinistic de- 
velopment only in the sense that it embodies the cream of 
Calvinistic thinking. Framed, as Dr. Alexander F. Mitch- 
ell so eloquently tells us,* "when the Church was still 
under the happy influence of a marvellous revival, when 
the "Word of God was felt as a living, quickening, trans- 
forming power, and preached not as a tradition, but as the 
very power and wisdom of God "; and " by men of ripe 
scholarship and devoted piety, who have remained our mod- 
els of earnest preaching and our guides in practical godli- 
ness, even unto this day'-; and primarily for the purpose 
of vindicating the doctrine of the Church of England as im 
harmony with the consensus of Reformed Christendom,, 
and therefore with a constant effort to make its decisions, 
unanimous f and to secure moderation and catholicity ;J it 
not only stands to-day as the representative (in Dr. SchafPs 
words) of " the most vigorous and yet moderate form of 
Calvinism," as (in Dr. Macgregor's words) " a model of 
guarded strength in moderation," but also as a document so 
filled with vital godliness that its every section seems to 
have been framed in the consciousness of God's presence,, 
and no one can feed on it without feeling that he is in the 
very temple of the Most High.§ If men would only study 



* Minutes of the Sessions of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, etc. . 
Introduction : p. lxxv. 
f Ibid., p. xlv. 
% Ibid., pp. liv., lv., lxxiv. 

§ Cf. Dr. Candlish (the elder) : " I think it worthy of special notice 
how our Westminster Standards, sometimes held to consist of hard and 
dry abstractions, place so much stress on personal union to Christ as 
the explanation of our being made partakers of the benefits of redemp- 
tion." {The Fatherhood of God, edition 5, p. 196.) The whole pas- 
sage, pp. 192-197, will repay perusal in this connection. 



76 



ON THE REVISION OF 



the Confession ! Take a single example of how recklessly 
it is not infrequently quoted. In speaking of the interpre- 
tation of the Scriptures (I., ix.) it sets aside the patristic and 
mediaeval method of torturing a " multiple sense " — literal 
and spiritual, allegorical and anagogical — out of each text of 
Scripture, by the decided assertion that the sense " of any 
Scripture " " is not manifold, but one." On this perfectly 
obvious and thoroughly scientific statement Mr. Robert 
Macintosh founds page after page of assault on the Confes- 
sion, incredibly misinterpreting it to mean that all parts of 
the Bible teach the same thing ! This is just one-quarter 
of his whole argument to prove the Confession to be obso- 
lete.* The assertions which have become so common of 
late that the Confession is supralapsarian in the third chap- 
ter, teaches by implication the damnation of some that die 
in infancy in the third section of the tenth chapter, and 
gives insufficient recognition to the love of God as over 
against His sovereignty, scarcely differ in kind from this 
proceeding of Mr. Macintosh's. 

in. 

EXCLUSrVENESS OF THE CREED. 

There is still another attitude which has led to objection 
in some quarters, during the last year, to the Westminster 
Standards, without necessarily implying lack of harmony 
with their doctrine. This is a feeling that the creed is too 
exclusive, and a desire for Church union and greater catho- 
licity of Church life, based on the undoubted facts that on 
the one hand the Westminster Standards, while moderately 
and catholically Calvinistic, are yet exclusively Calvinistic, 
and on the other, that Christendom is broader than Calvin- 



* The Obsoleteness of the Confession of Faith, pp. 44-55. 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



77 



ism. This position is fairly represented by the overture 
presented by Mr. Macdonnell to the Presbytery of Toronto,* 
which was based primarily on the proposition that " the 
Church of Christ should be careful not to exclude from the 
ministry any man whom the Lord of the Church would 
receive." Mr. Macdonnell illustrated his meaning by 
pointing to godly men in the Methodist and other 
churches, admired by us all, and gladly acknowledged to be 
true ministers of the Gospel, whom, nevertheless, we would 
not admit as teachers into our hedged and walled portion 
of the Church. We cannot but think, however, that we 
should be as loyal to God's truth as charitable to our fellow- 
men. This position, moreover, appears to us to be founded on 
a mistaken view of the nature of the Church and of Church 
unity, as well as on an insufficient realization of the diffi- 
culties of minimum Confessions. Its apparent liberality 
may, after all, prove not to be wholly out of affinity with 
the illiberal conception which identifies " our " Church with 
the Church of God, and seeks the fusion of all denomina- 
tions into one external body on account of difficulty in con- 
ceiving of the Church as one amid a multiplicity of forms of 
organization, creed, and life. The last few years have 
given birth to many schemes to secure Church unity by 
some external means, or in some external sense — by inclu- 
sion in a common organization, as if unity were attainable 
" by building a great house around a divided family," or by 
enforced uniformity in forms of worship, or the like — none 
of them the product of a truly liberal spirit. We have but 
to open our eyes to see that the living Church of God is 
already one in the unity of the Spirit, or awaits, for its full 
realization, only the spirit of oneness in our hearts. If it 
were, indeed, true that "our Church" constitutes the 



* Reported by The Toronto Mail for April 3, 1889. 



78 



ON THE REVISION OF 



whole true Church of God, then we should beware of 
excluding from our pulpits any whom God has called to 
preach His Word. But if we all who, under many names, 
hold fast to the one head, are, by common communion with 
Him, united into one spiritual body, it by no means follows 
that each member is not required to do its own work in its 
own appointed way. Every colonel in an army has not an 
inherent right to command every regiment ; and yet the 
army is one. In a word, the matter so put raises the whole 
question of the right of denominational existence. If we 
have a defensible right to be Presbyterians, we have as just 
a right to our separate creed as to our separate organization. 

And who is to determine for us the minimum of truth 
which Christian men are bound to confess ? Is it so easy 
a matter to distinguish between such essential doctrines as 
we dare not mar our witness to, and the unessential ones 
which we may suppress public confession of for the sake of 
outward unity of organization ? Does not the line of 
division fluctuate from age to age ? May not even a sec- 
ondary question — say such as circumcision — on occasion 
become vital (Gal. v. 2)? Can we innocently consent 
permanently to testify in a public manner to no truth 
except the most fundamental, nay, the most commonly 
recognized, and therefore the least in need of our testi- 
mony ? And, finally, if all these difficulties were sur- 
mounted, and we had attained a minimum creed, would it 
not be embarrassing to possess a creed from which we could 
allow no deviation — deviation from which ipso facto (just 
because it is the minimum) excludes from heaven — of the 
whole of which we must say, " Which faith, unless every 
one do keep whole and entire, without doubt he shall perish 
everlastingly " ? We should consider well whether this 
liberal pathway leads not, in the end, to tyranny. 

It would not require very extended investigation into the 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



79 



nature of doctrinal standards to learn that they must needs 
contain much more than the minimum of faith. The 
attempt to pare down our testimony to truth to the narrow- 
est limits is similar to the attempt to enter heaven on the 
minimum of morality. And how could a minimum creed 
serve as a text- book of doctrine, or protect the people in the 
exercise of their rights as against the misbelief of a pastor ? 
The necessary contents of a doctrinal standard are deter- 
mined by a threefold test : (1). It must contain our confes- 
sion of essential Christianity — all the holy truths that lie at 
the basis of our Christian religion must find their places in 
it. (2). It must mark our highest attainments in divine 
truth: whatever we have come clearly to see to be the 
truth of God must be unwaveringly testified to in it ; after 
Nice no creed is tolerable which does not bear witness to 
the Trinity ; after Chalcedon, none which does not testify 
to the holy truth of Christ's person ; after Augustine, which 
does not confess to the sovereignty of God ; after the 
Reformation, which does not clearly proclaim justification 
by faith. To falter in our witness to God's truth after we 
have once attained to a clear conception of it, is not a 
venial fault. (3). It must contain, also, much of very subor- 
dinate importance per se, which the administrative func- 
tion of the doctrinal standard renders a necessary part of 
its contents. For one great use of a doctrinal standard is 
to determine the fitness of men to exercise, not the office of 
pastor, but the office of pastor in this or that church. For 
instance, the Presbyterian people believe that God has 
commanded the observation of the Lord's Supper " till He 
come." A Quaker is ineligible to a pastorate in this 
church, therefore, and our doctrinal standard must be so 
framed as to protect the people from having their rights 
invaded in this particular. Again, the Presbyterian people 
believe that it is not only their privilege, but their duty, to 



80 



ON THE EEVISION OF 



consecrate their children to Christ in holy baptism. No 
one, accordingly, who denies the ordinance of infant bap- 
tism to them can possibly be permitted to occupy the posi- 
tion of pastor among them ; and our doctrinal standard 
must be so framed as to protect the people from invasion 
of their rights in this particular. In a word, a creed, in the 
sense of a doctrinal standard, as distinguished from a litur- 
gical form, must be extensive enough not only to witness 
to the essential Christianity of a people, but to enable them, 
on the one hand, to testify through it to the truth of God 
as they have attained knowledge of it — for testimony to 
truth against heresy and error from within is only second 
in importance to testimony to truth against heathenism and 
error from without — and to protect them, on the other 
hand, in their Christian rights in the administration of the 
Gospel. Two propositions may, in fact, be laid down here 
which are worthy of our most careful meditation before we 
yield to present clamors for brief and primary creeds. The 
people's right to no Christian ordinance is safe which is 
not guaranteed to them in the standards of the Church. 
Without this guarantee, the eligible pastors may hold any 
views and attain to any tyranny in the matter of the admin- 
istration of ordinances. And the Christian "knowledge of 
no people can he permanently maintained at a higher level 
than the contents of their doctrinal standards. Continuity 
and harmony of teaching is only attainable within the 
limits of the doctrinal standards. With respect to all that 
is beyond or outside them, successive teachers may and do 
differ ; the people are confused, and grow first doubtful, 
then agnostic, and then oppositive. If we would have 
the people pass beyond the first principles of the faith, we 
must pass just in that proportion beyond them in our 
Creed — which is not only our official testimony to the 
truth, and our official text-book of doctrine, but our stand- 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



81 



ard of teaching to all our pastors. The cry for brief, pri- 
mary creeds is, therefore, a movement which must be 
characterized not only as undoctrinal, but anti-doctrinal. 
It is a direct blow at the right of the people to the whole 
truth of God. 

IV. 

DOCTRINAL OBJECTIONS. 

We must not fail, however, to recognize frankly that, 
after all these causes of dissatisfaction with the Westmin- 
ster Standards are eliminated, there remains a residuum — a 
small residuum — of objections which arise out of doctrinal 
grounds. There are, no doubt, several kinds of objections 
to be recognized even here. Some arise merely from the 
opinion that the truths of the Gospel do not receive the 
same relative emphasis in the Confession as in the Bible ; 
and these are probably the most frequently urged of all 
forms of doctrinal objection. Dr. Candlish, in supporting 
his overture in the Free Church Presbytery of Glasgow, 
supplies a good example of how they are presented. " The 
Confession," he is reported as saying, " did not express, in 
their scriptural proportions, some aspects of the Gospel, 
and these were such vital and precious truths as the love of 
God to the world, His free offer of salvation to all men, 
and the responsibility of every one who heard this gracious 
call for accepting or refusing it. It was not meant that 
these truths were not contained in the Confession. He 
strongly contended that they were in it, but they were not 
so prominent in it proportionally to the statement of other 
truths — those of the sovereignty and almighty power of 
God's grace — as they were in the Bible."* It will be 
remembered that it is with these points that the Declar- 
atory Acts of the United Presbyterians and the Presby- 



* The Glasgow Herald for February 12, 1889. 



82 



ON THE KEVISION OF 



terian Church of Victoria deal. Other objections arise out 
of real recalcitration from some of the doctrinal statements, 
or even from some of the doctrines stated in the Confession. 
A fair example of these is supplied by the overture of the 
Presbytery of Nassau, praying the American Assembly to 
revise Chapter III., Of God's Eternal Decree ; and others 
would seek a far more thorough, if not more radical, re- 
vision. Lastly, some objectors are objectors because they 
have consciously drifted into a wholly un-Calvinistic, or 
even anti-Calvinistic, position. A fair example of this 
attitude is supplied by Mr. Eobert Macintosh, who, in 
his pamphlet on The Obsoleteness of the Westminster Con- 
fession of Faith, constantly speaks of " Calvinism " from 
the outside, and thinks that the Bible, " but for its occa- 
sional language as to election, coincides not with Calvinism, 
but with evangelical Arminianism." * And other exam- 
ples could be adduced. 

That objectors of all these sorts, even of the most radical, 
have made their voice heard in the course of the last few 
months, is surely in no wise strange. When the Confes- 
sion was framed there were those who did not accept its 
system of doctrine ; and it is no wonder that there are such 
to-day. If those who are wholly out of sympathy with it 
are to hold office under it, of course it must be " revised," 
as to have obtained a like result two hundred years ago, it 
would need to have been very differently framed. The only 
peculiarity of the present situation is, that the churches 
seem now troubled by the objections of this small minority 
whom we have always with us, and who so confidently de- 
mand a revolution of our whole scheme of doctrine for 
their personal comfort and ease of conscience, that they ap- 
pear at times almost in danger of getting it. Such a situa- 



* Op. cit, p. 50. 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



83 



tion appears, however, not so much to put the Confession 
of Faith, as the churches, on trial ; and its issue is apt to 
determine less whether the Westminster doctrines be true 
than whether the churches which profess them remain faith- 
ful. After all, the Church exists for the truth : it is " the 
pillar and ground of the truth." And although it is the 
duty of every church, as of every individual, to see to it 
that she does not profess a faith she does not believe, yet 
her convictions are not the measure of the truth. Its norm 
and standard are elsewhere ; and a church's convictions 
are rather the measure of herself than of the truth. 
It is the duty of every church to believe and profess faith 
in all that the Bible teaches. And when we speak of revis- 
ing a creed, the real question is not (as has been often sup- 
posed) whether the church still believes the creed, but 
whether the Bible still teaches it ; and the true remedy may 
therefore be found not in revising the creed, but in recall- 
ing the church to the perception and embracing of the 
whole truth of G-od as revealed in His word. Woe to 
every church which formally and deliberately exscinds from 
her public profession, any truth of God that He has revealed 
for the instruction of His people. 

These obvious principles, important enough in them- 
selves, have an especial importance to the American Pres- 
byterian Churches, in which acceptance of the doctrinal 
standards is not made a condition of church membership. 
Perhaps, at bottom, we are face to face here, in more or 
less developed form, with one application of the modern 
doctrine of the "Christian consciousness." But at all 
events it has little fitness among us. Presbyterians do not 
look upon their creed as the expression of what their 
people believe : but rather as the expression of what they 
ought to believe. Like the perfect moral standard of life 
— the divine perfection; this creed strives to represent 



84 



ON THE REVISION OF 



the perfect intellectual standard of faith — the divine truth. 
We do not ask our people to profess faith in all its articles 
at the outset of their Christian course : we ask them to set 
their faces toward it — as they set their faces toward sanc- 
tincation — as the goal of their understanding of divine 
truth. It is the standard of the teaching they are to receive, 
not of the knowledge they have already assimilated : it rep- 
resents not the minimum of knowledge that the Church 
demands ere she receives a soul into her communion, but 
the maximum that she expects to train her people to in the 
prosecution of her work as a teacher sent from God. Some 
other churches have creeds which they use as the test of 
fitness for membership in the society of Christ : and it is, 
perhaps, not altogether strange that some who have come 
from them to us should have some slight initial difficulty 
in apprehending our different practice. But it is strauge 
that those born and bred among us should occasionally fall 
into the same error. It would be a revolution of our whole 
point of view were the American Presbyterian Church to 
undertake a revision of the Confession, or to attempt to 
frame a new and more primary Confession to substitute for 
it, on the ground that the present Confession is not through- 
out believed by our people, or that it is too abstruse or dif- 
ficult to be easily understood by the less instructed and less 
advanced among them. The Confession is not a popular doc- 
ument. It does not represent the stage of Christian faith at- 
tained by our babes in Christ. It is our standard of teaching 
not of membership ; and it is addressed to those who, trained 
in the word of God, present themselves as men learned in 
the Scriptures to become teachers of others. To them it offers 
itself as a succinct statement of the teaching of the Word, 
and as such demands their suffrages. The only legitimate 
criticism of it will therefore turn on the simple question, 
whether the doctrine taught in it is the doctrine of the Bible. 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



85 



It is, of course, easy to say that in all these remarks we 
have assumed that the Confession does embody the truth 
of God. This is perfectly true. We are addressing now a 
body of men all of whom have set their seal to it as " con- 
taining the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scrip- 
tures": and it is no violent assumption that they hold fast 
their profession, until they give us notice to the contrary. 
In such circumstances it is surely within the mark to say 
that revision of the doctrine of the Confession is for us a 
question of our own faithfulness as much as it is of its 
truth. If its doctrines are not true, in God's name let it 
be shown out of the Scriptures, that we may all be saved 
from the confession of a lie. But until that is done (and 
as yet it has not been done, though generations of oppo- 
nents from without have essayed it with quite as much 
learning and force as are now embarked in the effort from 
within), let not those who believe them to be the truth of 
God, as revealed in His Word, be misled into revising 
them on any such plea as that the Creed ought to be con- 
formed to the living faith of the Church. If the Creed be 
conformed to the truth of God, that is a better thing. In 
such case (and we believe this to be such a case) the living 
faith of the Church needs rather to be conformed to the 
Creed. 



86 



ON THE EEVISION OF 



Y. 

CONFESSIONAL SUBSCBIPTION AND 
BEVISION.* 

The chief reason why I am personally opposed to revision 
of the Confession of Faith is because I believe its doctrine 
to be the truth of God, and because I believe its forms of 
statement of that doctrine to be at once exact and catholic — 
broad enough to include all soundly Calvinistic thinking, 
and precise enough to exclude all tampering with the Cal- 
vinistic truth. I am confirmed in my conviction that the 
Confession clothes the true doctrine in admirably chosen 
language by the straits and inconsistencies to which those 
are driven who are trying to point out passages in it which 
need revision. I am sure it is not the Confession that is at 
fault, for example, when men praise the first section of the 
third chapter, and then cry out against the third section. 
This is but denying in detail what is affirmed in the mass. 
If it be indeed true that God has " freely and unchange- 
ably " ordained " whatsoever comes to pass," then we can 
be offended by the assertion that He has predestinated some 
men and angels unto everlasting life, and foreordained 
others to everlasting death, only if we are prepared to deny 
that " it comes to pass " that some go to everlasting life and 
some to everlasting death. The Confession brings to 
admirable expression the system of doctrine which I find 
delivered in the "Word of God. And my own personal 



* Printed in The Presbyterian Banner for November 13, 1889. 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



87 



argument against revision, satisfactory to myself— and I 
trust I do not stand anything like alone among the thou- 
sands of Israel in this — is that the Confession does not need 
revision. 

Nevertheless, when it fell to my lot to set forth a state- 
ment of reasons why revision is not called for,* I did 
not confine myself to this one reason. There are other 
reasons equally valid ; and I stated some of them, too. 
One of these is, that as office-bearers in the Presbyterian 
Church, we do not accept the Confession for its ipsissima 
verba, but only for its " system of doctrine "; and, there- 
fore, so long as we cordially hold to its system of doctrine, 
we really have no stringent reason for revising it, even 
though we may fancy ourselves able to improve upon its 
forms of statement. This is a perfectly valid argument ; 
and it has been proved to be worth stating by the circum- 
stance that the majority of those who have advocated 
revision have been careful to say that they are not dissatis- 
fied with the system of doctrine, or, indeed, with any one 
doctrine of the Confession, but are only desirous of chang- 
ing some of its forms of statement. Now certainly it is 
worth while saying to these brethren that they have no 
grievance, that they have not accepted the Confession for 
more than the system of doctrine, and that seeing that they 
are not asked to assert that its forms of statement are abso- 
lutely perfect and incapable of improvement, they ought to 
think twice, or even thrice, before they enter into the 
unsettling path of revision, without prospect, or indeed 
possibility, of at all bettering their relation to it. I believe 
this to be, indeed, an absolutely unanswerable argument ; 
one which takes away all color of real necessity for any of 
the revisions proposed by men who are sound in the faith. 



* For the text of these reasons, see above, p. 39. 



88 



ON THE REVISION OF 



I find, however, that this argument of mine has been the 
occasion of some misunderstanding which seems to need 
correcting. On the one hand, it has been said that I am 
favoring a lax administration of our formula of acceptance. 
On the other, that I have represented our formula as itself 
a lax form of subscription. A word or two on both these 
points need be said. 

1. In the first place, I am certainly not in favor of a lax 
administration of any formula. I feel bound to say frankly 
that I cannot help believing that a lax administration of 
our formula would be a demoralizing step. I cannot think 
it consistent with essential honesty to accept a creed, or to 
continue to live under a creed which we have accepted, for 
system of doctrine — the system of doctrine of which we 
do not believe. For a Church to impose a formula which 
she does not intend to be taken in its strictest sense and to 
require to be lived up to, it seems to me, would be dishon- 
est in her, and would be a betrayal of her trust as the pillar 
and ground of the truth. And for an individual to accept 
it when it did not express his hearty conviction, would be 
dishonest in him. ~No plea of the animus imjponendi 
can relieve the individual conscience of its responsibility in 
making its own professions. Whatever else we do, let us 
not sap the very springs of our honor and credit. Let all 
creeds perish ere we consent to profess what we do not 
believe. 

2. In the second place, I am certainly not in favor of 
relaxing our present formula. There would not, of course, 
attach any dishonesty to the use of a laxer formula. But 
the adoption of such an one would certainly imperil the 
continued empire of sound doctrine among us. We all know 
what has happened in the Church of Holland since the 
formula, by which its hereditary Reformed Creed was 
accepted, was changed from asserting that they received it 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



89 



because it is Scriptural, to asserting that they receive it in so 
far as it is Scriptural. A relaxing of the formula beyond 
such limits as secure strict acceptance of the Creed in its 
essential meaning as Scriptural and true, is simply breaking 
down all barriers and demitting the whole function of the 
Church as guardian of the truth. 

3. It may easily be inferred from what I have just said 
that I do not think our present formula a lax one. It is a 
liberal one ; as liberal as it ought to be ; as liberal as it is 
safe to be ; as liberal as is consistent with the Church's 
witness to and guardianship over the truth of God. But 
it is in no sense a lax formula. It is, on the contrary, a 
binding formula — a strict formula — in the use of which no 
man can honestly accept our Confession of Faith and not 
be a sound Calvinist. And I need not say that this is just 
what I think it ought to be. 

4. But I think it very important that we should not allow 
our minds to be confused as to what it is to which this 
strict formula so strictly binds us. What this is, is to be 
settled not by our preferences, but by its own terms. 
What the ordainee is required " sincerely to receive and 
adopt " is " the Confession of Faith of this Church, as con- 
taining the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scrip- 
tures " (Form of Government, xv.). This is not the same 
as requiring him to receive the Confession of Faith in its 
ipsissima verba, or in all its forms of statement. That 
would scarcely be a liberal formula. Eor is it the same as 
merely requiring the reception of the Confession for sub- 
stance of doctrine. That would not be a safe formula. 
What is " nominated in the bond " is " system of doctrine 
and that is historically what has always been understood by 
it. As such, it is both a liberal and a safe formula. Lib- 
eral, because it does not bind to the mere letter ; safe, 
because it strictly holds the ordainee to the system of doc- 



90 



ON THE EEVISION OF 



trine and to every doctrine that enters as a constituent part 
into that system. No one can sign this formula who is not 
a strict Calvinist ; no one who denies any one of the doc- 
trines which enter into the structure of the Calvinistic 
system as taught in the Confession of Faith. And if he 
thinks he can, the Church courts must teach him better, as 
indeed so may the civil courts. But, on the other hand, 
no Calvinist who has accepted the Creed in the use of this 
formula, can possibly be disturbed by what he deems infe- 
licities of the language or of the forms of statement in which 
the system of doctrine is stated. He has not signed it for 
" forms of statement," nor for " mode of arrangement," nor 
for "organizing principle," but specifically for "system of 
doctrine." It is a safe formula, because it binds strictly to 
the whole doctrinal system of the Confession, and to all and 
every one of the doctrines entering as essential constituent 
parts into that system. It is liberal, because it allows for 
all sorts of variation in preferred ways of stating the system, 
consistent with preserving the system intact. It, therefore, 
allows all the liberty consistent with the preservation of 
the whole truth, and thus evinces itself as the ideal formula. 

5. I am aware that some express themselves sometimes as 
if they thought " system of doctrine " a rather evanescent 
thing, not to be identified apart from the words and forms 
of statement and modes of arrangement by which it is 
brought to expression. But surely this is not thoughtfully 
said. We all know what Calvinism is — what Arminianism 
is — what Pelagianism is — apart from any one statement of 
any of them. If any one asked me to give him a work teaching 
"the Calvinistic system," my only embarrassment would be 
to determine which work to give him. I might take Dr. 
Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology in one hand, Dr. 
Shedd's Dogmatic Theology in the other. Dr. Dabney's 
Syllabus under one arm, and Dr. Henry B. Smith's System 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH. 



91 



under the other, and truly say, Take your choice ! What ! 
the same system amid so much diversity ? Undoubtedly. 
Perhaps no single sentence would be found expressed in 
identically the same words in any two of these works ; cer- 
tainly there are great variations to be found in them in 
forms of statement, even in conception, even (within limits) 
in doctrine itself. But the system abides in all. And it so 
abides in all as to be just as easily identifiable and just as 
strict a conception, as the special mode of statement of any 
one of the works separately. Why, one might as well say 
that he has no clear conception of a horse apart from one 
special horse, as that he has uo strict conception of "the 
system of doctrine " apart from any one expression of it. 
No, the conception of the " system " is as clear as that of 
the ipsissima verba; and therefore subscription for system 
of doctrine is strict subscription. But it is also liberal sub- 
scription, which subscription to the ipsissima verba would 
not be. 

All this being so, is it not a fair argument against revi- 
sion that, if we still remain Calvinists, there is no call for 
revision of our Confession in order to relieve the con- 
sciences of our office-bearers % There may be other reasons 
why we desire revision — though good and sufficient reasons 
have not been published to the world as yet ; but since we 
sign only for system of doctrine, there cannot be any strin- 
gent necessity for revision arising out of wounded con- 
sciences, provided those consciences be Calvinistic, and 
heartily believe the system of doctrine which lies expressed 
in our Confession. 



1 



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